Sparks
by SpellCleaver
Summary: Vader had every intention of ignoring that petty—if notorious—burglar on Coruscant, until evidence suggested that this "Angel" had Rebel ties. Meanwhile, Luke never expected his father to actively hunt him down, and he doesn't like it.
1. The Guardian

**Here's a new fic! Unlike usual, I haven't written anything for it in advance****—I'm writing the chapters as and when it's time to post them—but I do think it's going to be... if not a full length fic, then a decently long fic anyway. Definitely more than ten chapters, though we'll see where it goes.**

**I'd like to clarify before starting: if this seems cringey and/or contrived, _that is the point_. This is full of tropes and fluff (with a lot of angst at the appropriate times) and was a lot of fun to plan out and write. It was inspired by a post Azalea Scroggs made on tumblr. If you haven't read any of her fics yet, go and do it, they're great :)**

**That being said, I hope you enjoy it!**

* * *

The holo Vader was currently studying was the one that would kick off the fiasco that was the turning point of his career in the Imperial Navy, and indeed the Empire at large. But he didn't know that. All he knew was that he recognised the item it was of—as well as who held it.

"...confirmation is still pending, my lord, but it's the opinion of the analysts and myself personally that the woman here is—"

"Mothma." Vader said it distantly, without much thought to it. The holo was blurry, at an awkward angle, but clear enough—and the fact that it had been forwarded to him by one of his spies in the Rebel fleet was damning as it was.

"Yes, my lord. Therefore, it is my opinion that the importance of this _cannot_ be overstated—"

"Explain yourself. I do not see why."

The officer trailed off in her report. Her throat bobbed. "My lord?"

"Our mission over Ryloth is to crush this most recent series of uprisings. Your team's efforts were secondary to this aim. What relevance does this have?"

"My lord, our conclusion is again tentative, but we believe that the model of the blaster Mothma is holding, as well as of those in the crate in the background, are—"

"A1-180 blasters. Manufactured by a specific chain of factories on Coruscant, all under the jurisdiction of BlasTech." As a military commander, even one with a disdain for all weapons but the Force and a good lightsaber, Vader felt the need to keep updated on such things. "I see no reason why this is relevant."

"My lord." His comms officer swallowed again. The bridge was oddly quiet around them, especially in the pits. Her team was deadly silent. "BlasTech reported several thefts of such blasters from their factories recently. The Coruscanti police force believe that the culprit is the same petty burglar who's been an increasing irritation for them and the residences of the nobility on the planet—"

Vader lifted a hand, and she cut herself off.

"You mean to tell me," he said lowly, "that I should—or even that _you_ should—pay attention to the theatrics pulled off by some _petty burglar_ deluded enough to call themselves _Angel_?"

Fear spiked again—but she set her jaw. "I am an intelligence operative, my lord. I look for links, and patterns, in weeding out the Rebellion. Here is a potential link: items we _know_ to have been stolen by this _Angel_—these items being _highly effective firearms_—have turned up in the Rebellion's hands. Forgive me for being presumptuous, my lord, but if Angel _is_ working on behalf of the Rebellion..."

She didn't trail off of her own accord; she wasn't finished talking. She trailed off because she no longer had the breath to breathe.

Vader watched dispassionately as she reddened, hand coming to her throat in an almost instinctive movement. He did not understand why so many officers had been emboldened to the point where they thought they could get away with such insolence—

His gaze fell on the wrist of the hand at her throat. Just beneath the uniform, out the top of it, peeked a thin bracelet of braided thread. It was blue, this time. A shade of blue very close to that of the eyes of the person who'd made it.

Vader gave a quiet sigh, and released her.

_That_ was why.

To her credit, the officer took barely a moment of working her voice and lungs to get back into the flow of things.

"...then it is my belief that the subject bears further investigation. _Especially_ when one considers that Angel's attacks have always been against the Imperial elite, and no one else—their most recent was against Governor Tarkin, I believe."

Vader honestly did not care if the politicians were all robbed blind. It might teach them something about what was really important in this life.

"Furthermore, if Angel _is_ in league with the Rebellion, the fact that they can so easily infiltrate such a major military leader's refuge and steal whatever they please is a valid concern—they might well soon turn to military targets."

That... was a valid point.

Vader didn't want to admit it—he didn't really care about what happened on Coruscant—but it was a valid point.

And, he was reminded suddenly, as of several months ago, he _did_ care about what happened on Coruscant. Had a reason to want to return as frequently as possible, in fact.

"And what are you insinuating?" he pressed, hooking his thumbs in his belt. "Should I drop the task I've been assigned here to race back and root out this Rebel myself? Do what the police force should have done weeks ago?"

She stood her ground. As infuriating as it was, Vader was starting to appreciate that about her—it reminded him of Luke.

"I wouldn't presume to insinuate anything, my lord. My intention was only to point out that it may be something that someone would find worth investigating."

She had never implied that it should be him.

But it _should_ be him, Vader decided. It was an irrelevant thing, minor—but clearly Coruscant's authorities weren't able to handle it. Put a Force-sensitive on the case, and he'd have it cleared before it was even a threat.

The situation over Ryloth was mostly cleaned up, anyway. And this was _clearly_ much more _vitally_ important than the stack of datapads on the desk in his office containing enough tasks to keep him busy for the next few months all over again.

He just wanted to get back to Coruscant.

"Captain Piett," Vader snapped. The captain, skulking down in the pits, jumped to attention and did an admirable job of pretending he hadn't been listening to every word. "Plot a course back to Coruscant and alert the Emperor of my immediate return. Clearly this is not business that can wait."

"Yes, my lord." He saluted, and Vader noticed the flash of colour at his wrist that denoted one of those infernal bracelets.

He huffed another sigh.

The moment he returned to Coruscant, he and Luke were going to have _words_.

* * *

Vader arrived on Coruscant several days later. He took one moment to reach out to the brightest spot of light on the planet and field the clumsy, wavering tap of acknowledgement he got in return, then he shut down the connection.

He could feel his master's attention on him, like a sleeping krayt dragon had opened its eye. He could feel his displeasure just as keenly.

So Vader didn't waste a moment of time before preparing a shuttle and heading down to the surface. He didn't need to exacerbate Palpatine's displeasure even further.

The Imperial Palace remained just as much a testament to excess as it always had, with all sorts of bejewelled decorations in colours Vader couldn't see bedecking the once-austere halls. The only satisfaction Vader got from it was knowing that the Jedi would despise what their precious temple had become—and even that he struggled to revel in today.

This was an important conversation. He wanted to get it over with, then go find Luke.

He waited patiently outside the throne room to be admitted, ignoring the way the red guards tensed to high alert at his unplanned, unexpected presence. Palpatine's paranoia was only increasing with his age; it was yet another reason Vader wanted to be on Coruscant in this tense time. He needed to protect his interests.

Finally, he was admitted.

Palpatine watched him ascend the steps of the throne room in silence. Dusk was falling over this part of Coruscant and the room wasn't lit thoroughly; Vader cast a long, deep shadow as he walked. They were both nearly shadows themselves.

"Why are you not on Ryloth?" Palpatine asked only once Vader knelt.

"The situation there has concluded, my master. Cham Syndulla—"

"Has been routed, all organised resistance crushed, yes, yes. I read the report. But you were not there when it was crushed. You were already on your way back—in fact, when you gave the orders for the commander to eviscerate Syndulla's troopers as you did, it was with the knowledge that it would bring about a swift but pyrrhic victory. We had vital interests on that planet, Vader."

"It was clear there was no way we were going to win with the current priorities. We needed decisive action—"

"And _you_ needed to get back to Coruscant."

Vader swallowed. Here it began.

Palpatine sat back in his chair. "Tell me, Lord Vader: what was so urgent that you dropped all your responsibilities so quickly?"

Vader said, "This new thief—"

"I believe the denizens of Coruscant are beginning to call them _Angel_."

"—as you say, master, _Angel_ is a serious threat to the Empire's security. I have sent you the holo—"

"And I have seen it. Moreover, I have seen no reason for alarm. A petty burglar sold to the Rebellion. They would not be the first."

"They were able to breach Tarkin's home and stronghold. And..." He paused. "I believe they may be Force-sensitive."

_That_ made Palpatine sit up and take notice. His eyes widened fractionally. "Why?"

"I have sensed... flickers, master," Vader answered. It was true, but it would be going out on a limb to say that it was Angel he was sensing. At first he'd thought it might be Luke. "Sparks, in the Force. And I do not believe anyone but a Force-sensitive could breach Tarkin's sanctum so easily, unless they were of such skill that they would be a major security concern of ours anyway. Perhaps they are even trained. In any case, they are clearly a significant threat to all—"

"Ah. I see."

Vader blinked. "Master?"

Palpatine waved his hand in a short, sharp motion. "You worry for your son, with Coruscant's _guardian angel_ roaming free." His lip curled. "Understandable. You are attached to him."

"I have no attachment to the boy," Vader said hurriedly. He winced at how defensive it sounded.

Palpatine just looked amused. "I am sure you do not." He pushed himself to his feet and approached the large window that dominated the western wall. It was slightly brighter there; the sunset tinted the transparisteel gold.

Once Vader reached his side, Palpatine gestured towards the many starscrapers of the Imperial City district, though Vader knew intimately which one he was thinking of. Luke glowed within it like the stars slowly appearing in the skies above.

"If you are so worried about young Luke falling prey to this petty thief, perhaps you should allow me to train him in the ways of the Sith. He is powerful; I am sure that within a few weeks, he could defeat this mere burglar singlehandedly.

Vader's insides froze up, but his suit forced his organs to continue to function normally. "He is not ready for such things, master."

"Perhaps not." Disgust turned down the corners of Palpatine's lips. "Certainly, the fact that he has ignored all my attempts to contact and support him in this vital stage of his life implies an immaturity unbefitting of a Sith Lord."

Vader took a moment to thank the Force and all its creations that his son _was_ capable of sense, on occasion.

"As I said, master. He is not ready."

"I believe it." He shot Vader a glance. "Though I confess to being surprised at your change of heart, my friend."

Vader was treading on very, very dangerous territory, here. "My... change of heart, master?"

"I told you that the boy was not to be trained in the Force in any capacity until he was ready. And yet, when he returned to Coruscant after all these years, I found that he could shield, he could levitate objects, he could meditate. I know you taught him these things, Vader; one would only assume, in light of the terms _you agreed to_, you believed him ready."

"I agreed that he was not to be trained in any capacity until I believed he was ready _unless absolutely necessary_," Vader argued. "This was necessary."

Palpatine looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth.

"Teaching him to shield and transmit his thoughts," he drawled, "was _necessary_?"

"Assassination attempts have been made on him." In fact, Vader suspected his master had been behind them—they were a method of testing Luke's mettle. "He has been in danger before. It only felt prudent to give him a way to contact me from the opposite side of the galaxy, on a daily or twice-daily basis—for safety reasons, naturally."

"_Naturally_. But the levitation?"

"In times of heightened emotion, Luke would often accidentally fling objects around the room. Teaching him to control such a power was essential for the safety of his fellow students, and himself. So that he did not permanently injure a potential ally or himself in a way that could prove problematic once he takes his place in the Empire."

"_Of course_." There was an edge to Palpatine's voice now; it dripped with disdain. He clutched his cane tighter in his hands. "And _meditation_?"

"Purely to ensure he survived the stress and struggles of adolescence."

Vader paused, then justified: "So that if he touched the dark side, it would not control him."

Palpatine hissed out a breath. His disgust was evident in the Force.

"Clearly, master, everything I have done has enabled Luke to grow into a healthy, capable child so that he may serve you all the more effectively."

That was all it was.

His master sneered, "He would have to stop ignoring me to serve me."

Vader did not grant him a reaction.

"_Nevertheless_," Palpatine continued authoritatively, apparently sick of his apprentice's perceived weakness. "Young Luke is at the crossroads of his life. Having him raised at elite boarding schools around the galaxy has certainly helped him mature to this point, but he has now returned to Coruscant."

"Luke—"

"Has decided to take a year off to consider his options for his future, yes, I know." Palpatine waved his hand. "But half of that year has now elapsed, and if his _soul-searching_ has yielded any significant conclusions, he has not made me aware of them. Perhaps it is a good thing after all that you've returned to deal with this _dangerous Jedi thief_, Lord Vader." Palpatine looked amused, still, but his words were warnings. "It appears that your son may need you, your guidance, his own _guardian angel_," he sneered the term, "more than ever."

Vader had no idea what to say to that. "Perhaps he is simply out of ideas," he offered lamely.

"Well, if so, there is an excellent officers' academy right here on Coruscant I'm sure would be delighted to have him. If he attended there, the boy could be by your side in an official capacity within five years. You could assign him to your own flagship and teach him what his future responsibilities may look like yourself."

Vader would certainly like that.

Having his son with him, seeing him daily and _in person_—where he could make use of his great potential and power most effectively—was what he'd dreamed of since the boy was eleven and being shipped off to the other side of the galaxy for the first time.

But he did not think his master was suggesting it out of goodwill. He wanted something.

But what?

"I shall speak to him, master," Vader promised stiffly.

Palpatine smiled. "See that you do."

Vader nodded, then turned to leave—

"And, Vader?"

He paused. "Yes, master?"

"This _Angel_ is a minor threat. See that this errand does not take you too long."

His smile sharpened and sweetened simultaneously.

"I hate to think what will become of the fleet without you."

* * *

Vader arrived home soon after to find Luke in one of the hangars, feet sticking out from under an unfamiliar speeder, whistling off-key to himself.

He folded his arms across his chest, but his voice was amused. "You certainly seem busy."

There was a yelp, a clang, then Luke asked without emerging from under the speeder, "How long have you been standing there?"

"Not long," Vader admitted. "You did not sense me come in?" That would imply a heretofore unknown weakness in his son Palpatine could pick up on to use against Luke, which could set Vader's plans for galactic dominion back a few years.

"I'm trying not to listen to the Force too much right now." There was a winding or scraping sound, like Luke was unscrewing something.

"Why—" Vader cut himself off. "_Are you going to come out of there at all or not?_"

"One second and I'll be right with you," Luke promised. "Just—one—_OW!_"

A clang; a clatter; a string of curse words.

Something that was _definitely_ not concern tightened Vader's chest. His suit must be malfunctioning.

"Are you alright!?"

"Fine!" Finally—_finally_—Luke wriggled out from under the speeder. His hands were stained with oil; sweat plastered his hair to his forehead. "Just a bash."

"Of course." The tight feeling in his chest did not abate.

Luke got to his feet and beamed up at him properly, then, and Vader's lips tugged into a smile in response. Daily holocalls or not, this was the first time he'd seen his son in person in months. Luke looked even more grown up than he had then—and so much like his mother...

Vader instinctively reached out to him through the Force—he was _so powerful_—only to come up short against his shields.

They were flimsy, and Luke lowered them instantly, but they reminded Vader of their previous conversation topic.

"You said you were trying not to pay attention to the Force." He planted his hands on his hips. "What did that mean?"

"I'm happy to see you too, Dad. I'm doing well, Dad. Thanks for asking, Dad. _How are you_?"

A finger sprang out to wag in his face. "_Father_."

The corner of Luke's mouth twitched valiantly and Vader had a sudden horrifying premonition of exactly what he was going to say next. Thankfully, Luke sighed and acquiesced.

"Yes, _Father_," he said mutinously instead, though the smirk threatening his face betrayed him. "How have you been?"

"You still haven't answered my question."

"You haven't answered mine."

It was Vader's turn to sigh. "I have been well, little one. Now, why are you ignoring the Force? It is a futile endeavour."

Luke frowned.

Swallowed.

Looked away.

So caught up in the drama of the moment, Vader was almost let down by Luke's, "Coruscant's too loud."

He shrugged, a little self-deprecatingly, and said, "I'm still not used to it, in the Force. It's worse when I'm tired."

All the air rushed out of Vader as yet another sigh. "Luke—"

"I'm sorry, I—"

"—it is perfectly natural. You are strong with the Force. This problem of yours is a sign of that strength, not a weakness, or whatever you might be thinking."

"Oh," Luke said. He said it again when Vader touched his mind to build up his shields further, stronger, and the pain vanished: "_Oh_."

"I shall teach you how to shield more effectively," Vader decided, briefly dwelling on then disregarding the conversation he'd just had with his master about Luke's training.

Which reminded him...

"Now," he continued, hands going back to his hips. "I hear you have been ignoring the Emperor as well as the Force."

Luke actually groaned out loud at that, though semi-humorously. "Typical. Your first evening back and you're already telling me off for something you do regularly."

"Evidently it is an important part of how we bond." Luke snorted. "And once again, you are avoiding the question. It will not work."

Luke scowled. "I don't like him."

"I'd be concerned if you did, son."

"And you _still_ haven't asked me how I am."

"I'd thought you'd answered that for yourself," Vader pointed out. "Albeit sarcastically."

Luke glared. "It's _polite_," he insisted.

"So is answering the messages one receives. Particularly when they are from the Emperor of the galaxy."

Luke crossed his arms.

Vader smiled. "Very well. How are you?"

Luke smiled as well at that. Vader had the fleeting and _utterly_ ridiculous thought that it was worth it just to see that.

Luke reached out a hand; Vader accepted it, letting Luke clasp his fingers like when he was a baby and was just starting to figure out how his motor functions worked.

"Better now that you're here," he said earnestly.

Vader shifted where he stood, but Luke was still smiling that radiant smile of his, so he relaxed.

"Well, I shall certainly be here for a while," he promised. He reached out to touch Luke's cheek, then pat him on the shoulder, only for Luke to wince.

"What is it?" he demanded. That earlier ailment, the tight feeling in his chest, returned.

"It's nothing," Luke said quickly. "How do you know you'll be here for a while? How did you get permission to come back in the first place?"

"Intelligence dug up evidence that this petty burglar—Angel?—might be involved in the Rebellion," Vader told him, watching with a frown as whatever pained Luke made him tense up and wince again.

"Naturally," he continued, squeezing Luke's hand in a way that _by no means_ could be called affectionate, "I _have_ to stay on Coruscant to catch this dangerous Rebel and bring him to justice."

"You don't know it's a him," Luke pointed out, a little weakly. Vader's frown deepened.

"_Them_, then," he amended. "Luke, _what happened_?"

Luke quirked a smile. "It's nothing."

"_Luke_—"

"I got into trouble with the traffic police again, alright!? They're just too afraid of you to actually report it."

"One would hope so," Vader said, almost indignantly. "I did not go to the effort of executing three corrupt officers for nothing."

"'Corrupt' is a strong word. I _was_ going above the speed limit."

"You were fifteen, and fleeing from assassins at the time. It was quite understandable, yet they still attempted to press charges instead of pursuing the assassins." He folded his arms. "But what was it that happened _this time_?"

Luke mumbled. "I was going too fast again. They gave chase. I tried to escape."

Vader didn't believe that for a second. "Luke—"

"It's not my fault! You're the one who got me that rundown speeder and challenged me to make it go faster! Well, I succeeded!"

Vader regretted ever sending that sorry-I-can't-be-there-for-your-birthday gift before his brain caught up with him.

"Son, I know full well that is not how you were injured."

"It was! Ask them!"

"I have no desire to deal with those bureaucrats again and you know it."

"Then you'd better believe me."

"Perhaps," Vader purred. Luke's eyes narrowed at the sudden change in tone. "After all, I know going fast is your primary hobby. But considering how swiftly your monthly allowance has been disappearing recently, I suspect you've found more expensive, no less illegal ways of doing so."

Luke's eyes blew wide; he took a step back. "No."

"Luke, I am not a fool."

"That's not what I'm doing! I promise!"

"It's illegal and dangerous and _egregious_ that you would willingly partake in—"

"I'm not going podracing!" Luke burst out. Then, under his breath, "_Kriffing_ hells..."

The finger sprang out again. "Language."

"Oh," Luke bit back, "My _sincerest apologies_, Dad."

"_Luke_."

After a moment of staring, Luke burst out laughing. Vader tried to keep himself from chuckling in response, but failed.

He lowered his hand to rest on Luke's head and ruffled his hair. "I am serious, Luke. Please cease this _hobby_ of yours or I might die of stress."

Luke seemed to accept that he wouldn't be fooling his father, and deflated. "Alright," he conceded, catching Vader's hand again and squeezing it. "I love you too, Father."

Vader opened his mouth... then closed it again and let the word slide.

"Have you eaten yet?" he asked instead. "I'll sit with you if you haven't. We have much to catch up on."

Luke smiled. "I haven't," he confirmed, then used his grip of Vader's hand to tug him out of the hangar.

* * *

After they'd caught up over dinner, Vader had to retreat to his meditation chamber for some much needed rest. He would have gone without it—_had_ gone without it for the past few days, in fact, while he struggled to conclude the Ryloth campaign decisively and destructively—but Luke knew him well enough to ask how much he'd slept. When he got his answer, the disappointed look he gave him sent him right in there.

Sometimes, he mused, he felt less like the parent than the child.

"Besides," had been Luke's crowning point, "I didn't know you were coming back today, so I made plans to meet up with a friend tonight. I'm happy to cancel, but you need sleep."

Vader had just sighed. "One of your academy friends?"

"No. One I met on Coruscant when I first got here. You probably wouldn't like him."

"May I object to you meeting him, then? If I wouldn't like him—"

"You don't like anybody."

He considered that. "Point taken."

Luke headed out shortly after. He wouldn't let him see him out; he'd insisted he say goodbye while Vader was in his chamber, so his father didn't _accidentally _forget to head back to the chamber and sleep.

"What are you planning on doing?" Vader asked before he said goodbye.

"Just talk. That was his speeder I was working on earlier—I told him I'd fix it up for him a bit."

"Make it go faster?" Vader said drily, testing, testing—

"Exactly!" Luke grinned... then it dropped. He buried his face in his hands. "_No_, Father, _not_ so he can go podracing."

"So _you_ can go podracing?"

"No!"

"Luke, you promised—"

"I _did_," he said, "and I'm _not going to_! Please, just trust me."

Vader's voice and gaze softened. So used to hiding behind his mask, it was a moment before he realised that the softening of Luke's expression in response was not, as usual, a result of his son's uncanny ability to read him, but because he could genuinely see his face. The breathing mask Luke wore inside the chamber, on the other hand, meant it was difficult for Vader to see his.

"I do trust you, Luke," he said. "Come home safely."

Luke smiled. It looked pained—no doubt his injuries were still acting up. "I will." He stood up, hit the button to open the chamber, made to head out—

"And when you're back," Vader added to his retreating back, "I still want to hear more about this _friend_ of yours."

"I told you that you wouldn't like him," Luke threw over his shoulder.

Vader answered too late, after the meditation chamber had shut again, but he threw Luke's words at the walls nonetheless. "I don't like anyone anyway!"

The lingering sense of warmth that Luke's presence left, however, and the smile it brought to Vader's face, said otherwise.


	2. The Smuggler

**I think I'm going to aim for maybe one chapter a week, or every week and a half, since that gives me enough time to get everything drafted, edited and polished before I post it and also gives me a few days' break. **

**Forgive me if this chapter seems dry—I think it does, but there's a good chance that's because I've read it and edited it to death. I've spent far too long on formatting issues with the italics and line breaks.**

**Anyway, on a more positive note, thank you for the lovely feedback on the first chapter! It's definitely been an inspiration to keep writing :)**

* * *

Coruscant's night air was cool on his face. Luke smiled as he ducked into the last of the secret passages in and out of their penthouse, then backed around, emerging a few floors below the official landing pad and hangar.

Luke never liked using the main entrance. There were always eyes watching it.

Tonight, especially, was something he didn't want _anyone_ watching.

He could have travelled by foot through Coruscant—or he had enough money to use the public transport—but he rode his borrowed speeder to his first rendezvous, as fast as it could go.

Only once he was shooting through the airlanes at breakneck speed, high winds stealing his words before even he could hear them, did he dare voice what was on his mind.

"Blast it. Blast it, blast it, blast it—"

The injuries to his torso—cracked ribs? He still wasn't sure; he hadn't dared go to a medic for them and just ended up using bacta—twinged in protest. He ignored them. That fall hadn't even been that far— well, no, it _had_ been far, much too far, but he'd even risked cushioning himself with the Force! It shouldn't be hurting like this!

But that thought was a distraction, a fleeting muse; soon enough the dark worry and concern and panic clouding his thoughts reared its head again, as delivered by the man he loved most in the galaxy:

His father was after him.

His father would _kill him if he found out, oh stars—_

He forced himself to breathe. Took deep, rasping breaths and mused that a respirator or his father's meditation chamber would be _really helpful right about now_, but eventually managed to get oxygen into his lungs and blood into his extremities. He relaxed his fists on the speeder controls.

It wasn't a shortcut—not by a long shot, and certainly a more reckless action than his father wanted him to be taking. But this entire situation was a too-reckless action his father would disapprove of, including the meeting he was heading to right this moment, and he needed to let off steam.

He took a sharp dive in the speeder. Fellow commuters screeched at him but—unfamiliar vehicle or not—he levelled himself quickly and shot off in a completely different direction, through the Works. Going faster, faster, _faster_—

He had not lied to his father when he said he still irritated the Coruscanti Police for his flying. But once they realised it was him, they never bothered to chase him anymore; it got too messy if something went wrong and his father got involved.

So he could shoot through the abandoned buildings of the Works and no one would stop him.

He flew for as long as possible without seeing anyone, but cut off with a curse when the airways became too busy again to pull off the sort of stunts he needed to clear his head with. In his distraction, the shields his father had begun to re-teach him had crumbled; the annoyance and amusement and _life_ of everyone around him was making his head ache.

He hated Coruscant so, so much. It was too busy.

But at least it had enough people to hide one smallish boy on the cusp of adulthood slowly meandering his way towards what might be a pre-arranged meeting place... but what was more likely a newcomer to Coruscant's suicidal idea to drop by the remains of the old pet shelter in the lower levels. The remaining tookas that sheltered there ripped strangers apart; naturally any outsider sporting the sort of half-upper class Coruscanti accent, half-rough academy drawl that betrayed how little time he'd actually spent on the capital in the last seven years would be no exception.

The tookas purred loudly when they saw him.

A smile tugged at his lips despite himself—and despite that awful, awful thought still dogging the back of his mind. He brought the speeder right behind the rundown walls, into the shell of what was once the tookas' play pens, and sat in the pilot's seat whistling lowly to himself.

He hadn't turned up yet.

No surprise. He'd been able to sense that as he came in.

One particularly bold tooka leapt onto the edge of the speeder and nearly tumbled into his lap, rubbing its head along his arm. Luke gave a sound that was half-sigh, half-chuckle. He reached for the bag slung into the passenger's side of the speeder.

Well. One of the bags at least.

The rattle of the small pellets he always brought them—and the smell—fixed their attention on him.

He threw them. They chased after them like TIEs after X-wings. He was so amused with watching them scramble that he almost didn't notice the newcomer—but he did.

"Kid?"

Han ducked into the ruins of the shelter and scowled as a tooka ran over his foot. He growled a little at it; it growled back, then scampered back to Luke.

"Why'd you always feed these buggers anyway?" he grumbled, dumping himself in the newly-vacated pilot's seat. Luke shuffled over and tried not to trip on the bag at his feet. "They just get in the way."

"They growl and threaten anyone coming they don't like," Luke pointed out.

"Which is everyone 'cept you."

"Exactly. Good lookout, isn't it?"

That wasn't the reason Luke had started feeding them. Luke had started feeding them because they'd been hungry. But Han didn't have to know that.

Han harrumphed but changed the subject: the sure sign that he admitted that Luke was right. "You fixed my speeder?"

"Flew it all the way here."

"How far?"

Luke smiled. "From home," he evaded. "And she's better than ever." He lifted his hands from the front. "Feel free to test her."

Han gave an exasperated sigh but he reached for the controls... then stopped. Remembered why they were there.

"I'll test it later," he said, then turned to grin at Luke. Luke couldn't help but grin back. "What've you got for me today?"

Luke reached for the bag. "Where's Chewie?" he asked conversationally.

"Fixing some glitches with the _Falcon_. Some friends of his offered to help." He was meeting with other Rebel contacts. "Now stop holding out in me, kid: what's _that_?"

A tiny datachip, the size of Luke's thumbnail, lay in the palm of his hand.

"A datachip," he said redundantly. "It needs to go straight to the Rebellion. The other stuff in here is the usual stuff—jewels, gold, fancy weapons—and you know how that split goes—"

"Hey, hey, hey—hold up." Han took the datachip out of Luke's slender fingers, his thicker ones struggling to pick of the wafer-thin sheet of metal. "What _is_ it? Where'd you get it? You don't go to all this trouble for nothing, I know that—and you look like you got pretty beat up at some point."

Wincing, Luke resisted the urge to reach for his side. First his father, now Han; was he _that_ easy to read?

"I robbed Tarkin."

Han heard every word that wasn't said. His eyes blew wide. "You're _kidding_."

"I'm not."

"So— so this—"

"As I said," Luke repeated, "it has to go straight to the Rebellion."

Frankly, he didn't want _anything_ from the Tarkin Initiative in _anyone's_ hands. But this in particular... it could be disastrous if the wrong person got it—it could well cost him his life.

Han opened and closed his mouth like a gooberfish. "...alright," he said finally, palming the chip and sliding it into his pocket. "Chewie 'n I'll make sure they get it. Now," he focused on the more important part of this conversation, "the profitable part? A guy's got debts, you know."

And that was why Han was here: Credits.

It... disappointed Luke, for all that he was used to being surrounded by the crushing ambition and greed of the very worst sentient beings the galaxy had to offer.

He lived among the elite of Coruscant, after all.

"The usual split," Luke said. "Everything's in there."

"Aw, c'mon kid, I've got Jabba after me again. Fifty-fifty—"

"Eighty-twenty. The Rebellion needs this, and you know it."

"I ain't in this for your little Rebellion," Han reminded him, though there was little heat in it, "_Angel_."

The sheer absurdity of that name made Luke laugh. It was a slightly hysterical laugh—it had been a trying day—but it was a laugh all the same.

"I heard that for the first time today," he said conversationally. "Where the hells did that come from?"

"Dunno, kid. I just know your little heists are getting _pretty popular_ with everyone who's got a bone to pick with the Empire." He leaned forward. "You're _embarrassing them_."

"That all I'm doing."

"That's all you need to do. You're a _celebrity_. Everyone knows about the little thief in black with an academy accent and an escort of," he scowled down at the newest tooka, "little menaces wherever they go."

Luke's hand distractedly came up to pet one of said menaces. "Not _everywhere_. And who came up with that stupid name?" _It's like they _knew_ it would annoy my father._

"So it wasn't your Rebellion's propaganda machine?"

Luke paused. "I... hadn't even considered that. I just know that the Empire's started hunting me under that name."

Han looked alarmed. "Wait, hang on a second—_hunting_ you?"

"I'll be fine. _You'll_ be fine—I'm the only one at risk of being caught in the midst of stealing, and I won't give you up. It's my problem."

"Kid..." Han looked hesitant. No—he was looking at Luke like he was a plague-ridden child: too dangerous to go near, too pitiful and doomed not to feel for. "You know you could... stop? Leave this planet, leave everything behind. Hells," his hand clenched around the datachip, "it's been six months and you've already done so much for your Rebellion, I'm sure whatever contacts you have—"

"I'm staying, Han." Leaving was the last option on his mind. He couldn't leave his father.

"Is it 'cause you've got nowhere to go? 'Cause I'm sure Chewie and me can find some space on the _Falcon_—"

"_No_, Han." His voice, in its own way, boomed like thunder; for a moment he was was father's son. "I'm staying. No matter who they send out after me, _I'm staying_."

He'd dealt with every problem this Force-forsaken planet had thrown at him for six months now. He'd deal with his father too. He might need help, but... he'd deal with it.

He could not leave his father.

He stood from the speeder and swung his legs over the side. Han watched him approach the door wordlessly, tookas trailing in his wake.

"Hey, kid," he said suddenly. "Same time, six days?"

Luke nodded, but didn't turn around. "Same time, six days." He kept walking, despite the tooka now sinking its claws into the fabric of his trousers. "Give Chewie my regards."

Han was left in the shadows of the shelter, eyeing the remaining tookas nervously.

* * *

Luke had no speeder now, so he took the walkways and bridges to the nearest train station. It was a while away by foot and this area was rundown; more often than not, he had to make sudden leaps to avoid a piece of scaffolding collapsing underneath him. He didn't mind—nothing like the momentary imminence of death or clear one's head.

A tooka followed him all the way.

He stopped and let it approach him again, rubbing its face against his legs.

"You know," he said conversationally, "if you don't head back now, you might not be able to find the shelter again." That was what had happened to the tooka who'd followed him all the way to Tarkin's. He'd had to hide it at home for a few hours and hope that no one contacted his father.

The tooka just looked up at him with large eyes as he spoke. Contrary to what he was trying to tell it to do, it sat down.

Luke _might_ have overdone it when he'd tried to use the Force to stop them from attacking him. They adored him instead.

His father would not approve.

Not in the least because _his father wasn't the one who'd taught it to him—_

He sensed the person coming moments before they came.

He frowned when he did. Their mind was oddly quiet, like they were used to making themselves invisible until the last moment—

A shadow detached from the wall and Luke stared down the barrel of a blaster. "Freeze."

Luke froze.

Felt along the blaster with the Force and quietly set it to stun, but froze.

"Put your limbs up."

He put his hands up.

The figure prowled closer. Now Luke could make out dark, threadbare clothes as rough as the worn buildings' permacrete around them. Two cobalt lekku swung behind them and the voice had been low and slightly accented: a male Twi'lek, originally from Ryloth. Bony fingers grasped the blaster, shaking.

"Please don't hurt me," Luke said calmly, in the tone of one who was speaking more for the other person's benefit than their own. "I don't have anything on me worth stealing, I'm afraid."

He tried to inject the Force into his voice, at least a little, but he daren't do it too much; he had enough of the Emperor's attention as it was. He didn't need to draw more by lighting up the Force like a blown starfighter.

Besides, mind tricks weren't of the dark side. His Royal Wrinkliness would not approve.

In any case, it didn't work. The man's hands trembled more, but they didn't lower the blaster.

"You're in an abandoned section of Coruscant, and you're no building planner," he spat. "You came to make a deal."

Luke had lied too many times already today. He was tired of it. He wasn't even very good at lying.

"I did," he conceded. "But I already handed over everything of worth. I have nothing on me right now." Not strictly true: he had the credits needed for the train, but he needed those. He didn't exactly feel like contacting his father to pick him up.

The Twi'lek took one more step forward. "I doubt that, academy brat." Luke winced; he really needed to learn to disguise his accent. "So make this easy—"

He'd stepped too close.

The infamously aggressive wild tooka snarled and launched at him.

He cursed. The way he lashed out with his foot was perfectly understandable and Luke wasn't surprised when he kicked it to the side, but he did try to surreptitiously catch it with the Force before it could tumble off the walkway and into the levels below.

It landed and backed off, hissing.

"Please don't hurt the tooka," he said, voice still in that even calm, "it's not going to hurt you."

The Twi'lek ducked his head to glare at it. "That thing spat at me like a raving—"

He froze.

The tooka had wound itself around Luke's legs like a particularly fluffy sea slug.

The Twi'lek lowered his blaster. "It likes you."

"It's nothing, I just fed it—"

"A brat with an academy accent getting followed around by a tooka?"

Luke stilled.

Han's words from earlier raced back to him in damning clarity.

"You're—"

"No I'm not."

"And you just—"

"No I didn't."

"—robbed that sleemo Tarkin! And— if you just came back from a deal—" His eyes widened behind the mask on his face. "You—!"

"Please be quiet."

He knew.

Or, he'd guessed. Correctly.

He couldn't leave this man wandering around.

He knew his face now; he could identify him, turn him in—

But what could he do about it?

He wasn't able to alter memories. Mind tricks either didn't work or Luke wasn't skilled enough to make them work on him. Could he—

He swallowed.

No. He couldn't kill him.

He reached out a hand—to do what, he didn't know. But it didn't matter, because the Twi'lek seized his wrist anyway.

"_Thank you_," he intoned. "If— if you are Angel, then the things you've supplied the Rebellion..," so it _was_ the Rebellion who'd come up with that stupid name, "you have no idea how much of that has gone to Coruscant."

Luke knew exactly how much. Fifty-fifty was the deal: half the funds, as well as the usable equipment, went to the Rebellion. The rest went to the people of the galaxy—_particularly_ Coruscant.

Luke hated this planet. But he didn't hate the people who lived here.

And even once Han had his twenty percent, once the Rebellion had taken half of what was left... That was still a lot. He could still help.

"You've helped my family so much," the Twi'lek breathed. He put his blaster away entirely, then, and held out his hand. "Thank you."

Luke sensed nothing but earnesty from him, so he shook it.

If he'd ever had any doubts about stopping now that his father was involved, they had vanished.

"You can't tell anyone," he warned him. "Or I'll get caught. If you blabber—"

"I won't! I won't tell anyone—"

"Anyone?"

"_Anyone_."

There weren't really any other measures he could take. "Alright then." Luke dropped his hand and smiled at him.

The man seemed to hesitate, there.

"...you're a kid," he suddenly realised, peering through the twilight at him.

It reminded Luke of— well, of everything. Of his father waiting at home. Of the application to Skystrike or Prefsbelt half-filled out on his desk. Of the looming prospect of either leaving Coruscant and giving up this chance to help people in less than half a year, or staying on this detestable planet and learning to be an Imperial he hated.

But... at least then he'd be able to continue with all of this...

"Yeah," Luke found himself saying on autopilot, pushing past him. "I am. But I can help."

He paused, then kept going. The tooka followed.

"So I will."

* * *

He stopped perhaps a few levels up, only a short trek from the station.

The tooka still at his heels purred loudly.

"You really need to stop," Luke told it. "Seriously. You've already given me away once. I have a reputation here."

It purred louder.

"Shoo! Go away!" He made little hissing noises and flapped his hands for good measure.

It hissed back, unsure, but eventually stalked off indignantly with its tail in the air.

Luke sighed then headed for the station, feeling for his fare in his pocket.

A glance at the boards revealed that the next train in the direction of the Senate gardens was leaving in three standard minutes. He bought his ticket and took his seat inside. An Ithorian mother was wrestling with her squirming triplet toddlers in the seat opposite; she gave him an apologetic look, but he smiled back warmly. Another, slightly older one of her kids wandered over to babble at him and he listened intently, nodding and prompting in all the right places.

When she disembarked at the next stop, he let his smile fall. He turned his gaze towards the holo at the front.

Three stops to the Senate gardens. The Imperial news played but he only half-listened.

Darth Vader was hunting Angel. Angel had a name in the first place. Increasingly urgent questions and answers about his future.

He needed to talk to his contact.


	3. The Senator

The Senate gardens were one of the most beautiful places on Coruscant. Partly because of the care taken to include the flora of all civilised worlds—meaning, of course, to the Empire, the flora of_ all human worlds_—and because the sheer size meant that, at the very centre, the traffic lanes of Coruscant were only a distant hum. They were sparsely populated, too: Luke's personal favourite aspect of the gardens was that it was _quiet_.

But not today.

Today, their meeting spot was a Gatalentan-styled bench under a trellis of hanging flowers, overlooking the traffic south of Imperial City. He could hear the speeders clearly.

And his contact, once you first noticed it, was anything but quiet in the Force.

She was there before him, which was impressive seeing as he'd only sent the urgent request to meet less than half an hour before. She didn't turn as he approached, though he knew he must be loud—both physically and metaphysically.

She said nothing as he sat down, so he followed suit, staring out at the airlanes.

Finally, she spoke. "You're quieter than usual."

He grinned at her; she grinned back, buns shifting slightly with the movement.

"I was just thinking that it's still odd to see you in white rather than Imperial grey."

"Speak for yourself." Leia wrinkled her nose and she jabbed him in the arm. "I get that you wear black during your... _escapades_"—she tugged at the cloth of his black jumpsuit—"but whenever I see you around the place you're a _riot_ of colour."

"I'm a colourful person."

"Indeed you are. And it certainly suits you better than Imp uniforms did."

He grimaced good-naturedly. "Not to sound crazy and say I miss that hellhole... but I miss the academy."

"You sound crazy. That place was awful."

"I think you had it worse than most."

"Of course I did. Alderaanian princess, sent there to get the pacifist beaten out of her." Her tone was sharp with anger, but not at him—at the fact that it had worked.

The military organisation she represented showed that well enough.

Luke quipped, "Don't forget making you loyal and obedient to Our Glorious Overlord while they were at it."

The bitterness faded from her laugh. "Yeah. _That_ clearly worked."

"Flawlessly," Luke agreed. "And... I get you've been out for a few years now, but it's still _weird_ seeing you in white."

"And it's weird seeing you in colour," she shot back. _We've been over this. _"Though mainly because you always fiddle with your collar and sleeves."

"I do not!"

She gave him a look.

"Alright, I do," he admitted. "I'm just... not used to it."

"You'll get used to it."

He kicked at a rock. He missed. "Not necessarily. I might have to wear uniform for the rest of my life."

She frowned at that. "How _is_ all that going? What do you think you're going to do?" A pause, then—as if remembering herself— "Why did you call this meeting, anyway?"

He fidgeted.

Said, "It's... going. Palpatine apparently wants me to hurry up with my decision—suggested I go to this fancy officer's academy here on Coruscant..."

Leia snorted. "You? An officer?"

"It'd mean I could stay on the planet. Continue with," he waved his hand at her, the city, himself, "all of this. And I could get to a higher rank faster—be a spy."

Leia gnawed on her lip. "As a Rebel, I see the benefits."

"But?"

"But as your friend," she said gravely, "I say this: It would crush your soul."

He hung his head. "I know."

"So...?"

"I don't know." He gave a sharp laugh. "At least my father's now on Coruscant to _help me decide in these important times_."

He glanced at Leia. She had gone pale.

"You're _kidding_."

"Nope. He's back on planet."

"Why? For how long?"

"So that, _and until_," Luke drawled, "he can catch _Angel_."

A bird chirped someone behind them. Leia closed her eyes.

"Kriff."

"You can say that again."

"_Kriff_."

He laughed, a little hysterically. "Yeah."

"So... are you going to stop? Slow down? If he catches you—"

"He won't." Luke squared his shoulders. "And I'm not going to stop."

"Luke, if he—"

"I _won't_, Leia." He cut her off with a hand wave. "I won't. I can help people like this—I don't want to stop. I _won't_ stop, Not just because things get hard."

"Luke..."

He reached over and squeezed her hand. "It'll be fine, Leia. I want to keep helping. 'Because I can fight,'" he quoted, "'I feel like I have to, for those who cannot.'"

She smiled a little. "So you _do_ listen to me sometimes."

"I always listen to you. Especially when you're fourteen and possibly the least subtle Rebel sympathiser in the galaxy."

"And when I'm eighteen," she asked seriously, "and I'm telling you that I don't want to lose my best friend? "

"Then I'm listening and telling you that you won't."

She sighed. "I wish I had your faith."

"Hey. One of us has to be practical. Stars know it won't be me."

"Too right." She shoved his shoulder with a laugh. "Considering that _you_ contacted _me_ and it's taken you over ten minutes to say why."

"You can't guess?"

"I can. You've already given me a clue," her smile was a little pained, "_Angel_."

"Please tell me who came up with that name, I just want to talk to them."

"No. It's a good name."

He shook his head avidly. "It's a terrible name. It's like the person _knew_ it would annoy my father."

Leia pressed her lips together at that, but Luke decided not to push.

"And why give me a name, anyway?" he continued irately. "Surely it'll make it _easier_ to evade the Empire's attention if they _don't_ have a name for people to talk about me with!? What happened to keeping it a _secret_?"

"Rebel Command," Leia said slowly, "had a brainwave."

Luke held his hands up to stall her. "Wait—Command _know_ about me?"

"Of course—"

"Do they know who I _am_?"

Leia deflated. "...no."

"Then _why_—"

"People know about you anyway, Luke." Leia reached for his wrist. "On Coruscant, word was getting around about the kind thief helping the community by sticking it to the Empire. You're an urban legend, here—and High Command wants to use that."

Luke gently tugged his wrist back and crossed both arms over his chest. "Use that _how_?"

It was her turn to fidget, now.

It dawned on him. "Leia—"

"It's not what you think."

"I don't want to be tied up in any propaganda—"

"It's not propaganda!"

"_How_?" he demanded. "How is intentionally spreading the word about _a kind thief working with the Rebellion against the Empire_ anything but propaganda?"

"You— fine!" She threw her hands up. "Fine! It's propaganda. But we _need_ this, Luke. You know the sort of lies the Empire spreads about us at the academies—and everywhere else! You've lived with them your whole life! Do you know what the average person thinks the Rebellion is?"

Luke looked away. He did know that.

She said it anyway. "Murderers! Scum! Traitors!"

"Technically—" he tried to add.

"Don't get humourous with me, Luke Skywalker. You know exactly what I mean. Scum, criminals, _scoundrels_—" She choked on her own outrage. "And _none of it is true!_"

"Well—"

"_Very little of it is true_," she amended with an irritated huff.

Then her burst of fury gave way to something far more terrifying: calculation.

Luke's father did not trust politicians. Every time he saw Leia make that face, he remembered why.

"Essentially," she said airily, "you know as well as I do that most Imperial propaganda is either outright lies or blatant disfiguration of the truth. But _this_..."

Luke did not like that gleam in her eye at all.

"_This_ is entirely true. No sugar-coating whatsoever. A posh military brat with enough money that they could just forget about it has decided they aren't impressed by the Empire's relationship with the people and are doing something about it, despite great personal risk to themselves."

She continued, "They're a hero for the people. A hero for the _Rebellion_." Luke just raised his eyebrow. "It's all completely true."

"Most of the Rebellion doesn't even know who I am."

"Rumours spread. It adds to the intrigue."

He tried a different tact. "You're embellishing it."

"Am not. That's exactly who you are—and we _need_ that sort of press."

He pinched his lips together and examined a particularly large pink bloom in the trellis above in lieu of Leia's face.

She did not stop. "Come _on_, Luke. You work so hard. Don't you want some recognition for that?"

Well, he had to admit it'd be nice—nobody liked doing work and not seeing the results, for better or for worse—but as pleasant as his encounter with the Twi'lek had been that evening, it was dangerous.

"I'm not doing it for recognition," he told her instead. "I'm doing it because—"

She held up a hand. "If you say 'it's the right thing to do', I'm gonna scream."

"Why," he shot back, "because it's your line?"

She sighed. "You're insufferable."

"And _you're_ a hypocrite."

"How so?"

"If I ever meet a more self-righteous fourteen-year-old, I'll let you know."

She snorted. Raised an imperious eyebrow at him. "People change."

"Indeed they do." He grinned and watched her eyes narrow in suspicion. "Especially when they've been spending a lot of time with a particular individual, such as one Han S—"

"Finish _that_ sentence. I dare you."

"I thought you said there were no _scoundrels_ in your Rebellion."

"_Luke_," she said. It sounded so much like a whine—a ludicrous thing, coming from her—that he burst out laughing.

"Alright. I'll stop."

"Han isn't even an official part of the Rebellion," she grumbled. "_You _just dragged him in because we needed a fast ship and smuggler, and he needed money."

"I'd argue that Chewie had a lot to do with it as well."

"True," she considered, then looked up to meet his eye. "Though speaking of Han, I hear he was pretty annoyed at how cryptic you were about the non-monetary part of the deal, this evening."

"He probably got bitten by another tooka. That always leaves him in a bad mood."

"What was it you gave him? What did you find?"

He swallowed.

Nearly glanced to where he knew the holocams were, watching, but that would just give it away.

They didn't pick up sound. Luke and Leia were facing away from them; no one could read their lips. They were safe.

"It's the codes to the communications to and from the Tarkin Initiative base," he admitted. "All of them—past, present and near future. For maybe the next six to nine months. I made a copy then returned the original; he won't know they're gone." He shrugged. The lightness of the gesture belied the gravity of it all. "I figured that if that sleemo was up to something, cracking his comm signals would be one way to find out."

Her eyes blew wide. "Shiraya's word, Luke," she breathed.

"You've clearly been spending time with Pooja as well," he commented. He wasn't supposed to tell people she was his cousin, but Leia knew they were close.

She punched him in the arm. "Be serious," she chided. "Tarkin's getting more and more power and responsibility every day. This could turn the tide of the war."

He said, "I know."

Something—the Force, basic intuition, _common sense_—told him it wasn't the only thing that had happened today that would.

He tried not to dwell on it.

"So," he asked cheerily, "before I stay out so late my father sees fit to impose a curfew, is there anything specific you'd like me to steal in the next few days or should I just stick it to the rich?"

"A curfew might impede your workings," Leia agreed. Luke snorted at the idea. _Infamous Rebel Thief Foiled By Overprotective Father._

"And..." she continued. "Actually, there is."

She fell silent. With every beat that passed, Luke got more of a bad feeling about this.

"What is it?"

"It's a personal request. I— feel free to turn it down, it's selfish of me to even _ask_—"

"Leia," he caught her hand, "_what is it_?"

"I need you to steal a holocron," she said. "From Palpatine's personal collection."

Luke sucked in a breath. "Oh boy."

"I know."

"You're sure it's in there?"

"It was stolen from a sacked Rebel base. Unless it's with Vader..."

"It might be." Hope was evident in his tone; she winced. "What does it look like?"

"Here." She passed him a small holo. "This is it."

He studied it for a few moments. It looked like your standard Jedi holocron: blue, glowing, cubic. He memorised the geometric patterns on the sides.

"Never seen it before," he announced. "It's not one of my father's."

"Then it's the Emperor's...?"

"Must be." His tone was doubtful. "I'll have a look."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure. I'll— I'll have a look. And even if it's not there, the Palace—especially that vault—will have a lot of things to steal."

Leia hugged him. Luke was left reeling for a second before he hugged her back.

"_Thank you_," she whispered. "You have no idea what it would mean to me if I had it."

"I'll do my best," he promised. She beamed at him.

The weight—the pressure—of how much this impossible task would mean to her made him suddenly viscerally aware of just how tired he was.

"If it's a personal memento, I'll bring it straight to you," he said, standing up. "I won't send it through Han. But I'd better get going now, before my father sends out a platoon looking for me."

"Best avoid that," she quipped, but it was half-hearted. The mention of his father seemed to have brought back her earlier melancholy—her earlier _worry_.

His father would not catch him. Luke was sure of that.

"I'll comm you when it's time."

He didn't wait for her response as he walked away, the starlight casting her and the trellis in silvery shadows.

* * *

Luke was quiet when he re-entered the penthouse. He used the secret passages. It made no difference.

"Son," his father boomed, "you were out late."

Luke whirled, desperately trying to get his hammering heart under control. "Aren't you supposed to be _asleep_?"

His father took another step towards him. He seemed less massive than he had when Luke was nine and trying to steal cookies, but he seemed to crowd the entire corridor nonetheless. "I was. For several _hours_ after you left. When you said you were meeting a friend, I did not expect you to come back so late."

"It's fine, Father, I'm not a _kid_—"

"Be that as it may, young one, Coruscant is a dangerous place to be out late at night. Particularly for someone of your rank and importance."

"Coruscant is _always_ dangerous, regardless of the time of day."

Vader tilted his helmet. Luke cursed himself, soundly, in every language he knew.

"You are correct. Perhaps—"

"I'm fine! There's no need!" Luke wasn't certain what his father's solution would be—a curfew seemed a bit of a cop out, coming from him; an armed escort would be more his style—but he knew he didn't want to hear it. "I went to _military academies_ for seven years. I think I can handle myself."

"That may be so—"

"You think I can't?" Luke challenged.

Vader hesitated.

"I know full well that you are capable, my son," he said eventually, oddly mournful.

"But you fuss and worry anyway?"

"I remain _alert and concerned_, anyway."

Luke smiled a little. "I love you too, Father."

Vader said nothing.

Until, that is— "So, about this _friend _of yours—"

Luke buried his face in his hands. "I already told you, you wouldn't like them. I'm _not_ going to introduce you, so stop—"

"Oh, we need no introductions," his father purred. Luke had a very bad feeling about this. "And I am well aware that I would not like her. I _do not _like her."

Luke frowned... then it hit him. "The security footage—"

"Son, you are the one so insistent on me getting sleep. If you want me to _stay _asleep, I suggest you do not perform activities within the Emperor's purview that would lead him to wake me with important updates about how I should ensure my son does not involve himself with the wrong people."

_It's a little too late for that,_ Luke thought. "So, what? He just commed to gossip because he happened to glance at the security holos and notice that I was meeting with, _gasp_"—he splayed his hand across his chest dramatically—"a _friend_?"

"A _friend_ was not his implication, Luke."

He blinked and stared for a good minute before he blanched. "_Father!_"

"Under no circumstances is _Organa_ a suitable match for you, son, she's the daughter of an open Rebel sympathiser and a _politician_—"

"We are not having this conversation. No. I refuse to believe it."

"Luke—"

"Nope! Not having it!"

"I understand I have not been around but I _had _trusted that you were sensible enough not to involve yourself in—"

"We. Are. Not. _Involved_. Leia is my friend. We were catching up after I spoke to my _other_ friend and returned his speeder."

Vader folded his arms. "I have seen the footage. You seemed awfully close for _friends_."

"Because we're _close friends_!"

"I will believe it when I see it—"

"You _saw it on the holo_."

"—and Palpatine is not impressed." Luke made a face—he couldn't care less about what Old Wrinkles thought.

He'd been spending too much time around Han.

"You know we are his potential heirs."

"_Potential_," Luke insisted. Stars, he went out to deal weapons and meet with a Rebel contact, and now he was getting lectured on _propriety_? He almost wanted to laugh.

"Nevertheless. I would not be surprised if he endeavoured to introduce you to more suitable matches at the parade tomorrow, just to dissuade you from this... political faux pas."

"_Faux pas_?"

His father—who had certainly taken fewer politics classes than Luke had been forced to, that was for sure—nodded curtly. "Indeed. Organa has a reputation as being a little too anti-Imperial. If word gets around that you are spending time with her, the consequences—"

"I think you just hate the idea of me dating anybody." He added hurriedly, "Which I'm not doing!"

His father did not disagree, which allowed Luke a moment to fully process what he'd said a little while earlier. "Wait—_parade_?"

"It is perfectly natural for me to have reservations about you potentially trusting someone to that extent, son. You are a desirable target: you could be robbed, killed, kidnapped and sold to the Rebellion..." With every possibility, he grew tenser. His hand gestures sharpened. "Military training or not—"

"_Father_." Luke planted his hands on his hips and glared. He knew full well that with his size, demeanour and face, the expression was more reminiscent of a kitten play-acting at being a nexu than an actual nexu—Leia, as a terror unto herself, had always been the first to criticise it—but he might as well try. "What _parade_?"

Vader paused mid-rant, finger out and jabbed at him, frozen. "...we are not done with this discussion."

"_What parade_?"

"Another of the reasons Palpatine woke me from my... nap." He said the word with disdain, like a child throwing a tantrum about having to take it in the first place. "He informed me that we are both to attend a military parade in honour of my _great victory on Ryloth_ tomorrow, as a show of the Empire's continuing strength."

Luke whistled. "Oh boy. What did you do to make him _that_ angry?"

"I returned to Coruscant." _I returned to you._

Luke half-laughed, mainly to cover the pang of pain the words caused. He took a step closer and tugged Vader's hand towards him, lacing his fingers through his.

There weren't words, really, for what he wanted to say, so he let actions and feelings speak for him—sent of wave of gladness for his presence, of peace, of contentedness to his father.

Vader's hand contracted on Luke's slightly, but he said nothing.

"I don't suppose we can get out of attending?" Luke said hopefully.

"Unless I leave the planet this very minute, no."

Luke's shoulders sagged. He didn't want that.

So he supposed they'd just have to deal with it.

After all, they always did.

"And do not think I have forgotten about you and Organa. I still disapprove."

Luke sighed. "Go back to sleep, Father."

"And you?"

"I'll go to sleep too. It's early morning."

"We would not be up this late if _you_ hadn't stayed out so late—"

And so they restarted.

Luke smiled, tiredly and affectionately, and dragged his father back to his meditation chamber.


	4. The Hand

Luke would have to pry the admission word by word from Vader's mouth, but he was feeling more alert the next morning after having a proper rest overnight. He hadn't slept that long or that serenely in ages—since the last time he'd been in Luke's presence, in fact.

It put him in a marginally better mood. He could tell Piett, at the very least, noticed it when he met him upon his return to the _Executor_; the man's shields were as impeccable as always, face impassive, but he was slightly more relaxed in Vader's presence than he would be if he could tell Vader was angry.

"The investigators are in the briefing room, my lord," he supplied promptly, without Vader even needing to ask. "They await your arrival to begin."

"Good. Return to the bridge, captain, and ensure this warship continues to run smoothly. It would not do to appear disorganised _here_."

Piett swallowed, hearing the threat for was it was... and also the warning. The man had not signed up for the politics of the Imperial military, but he was adapting quickly. "Understood, my lord. Will—" He paused. "Have you any idea how long we may be stationed here?"

The thought left a sour taste in his mouth; he'd only been back for a day and he was already having to consider leaving Luke again.

"I do not, captain. It depends on the whims of the Emperor where the _Executor_ is needed, and it depends on how fast this thief is caught if I am required to go with you." _Hopefully it won't be soon._

Piett nodded. Vader knew he'd heard what he didn't say—the man had been around for a long time, after all, enjoying Vader's personal recommendation. He certainly remembered the days when Vader had had to constantly tote Luke around on the _Executor_, too young to be left to his own devices—_especially_ if Palpatine was anywhere nearby—and he was too shrewd not to notice that Vader was always in a better mood after talking to him.

And there was the thing with the bracelets. _Blast _those bracelets.

Vader ground his teeth together and decided he'd better get on with the briefing. "Dismissed, captain."

Piett went, all too gladly.

The briefing room was a fairly long walk away, but everything was a fairly long walk away on the _Executor_. Turbolifts only went so far.

When Vader arrived, the officers sitting around the conference table in the centre were slouching in their chairs, engaged in lazy conversation of veiled disgust and grandstanding. Such asininity ceased the moment his presence was known.

They scrambled to attention. One man scrambled a little too hard and sent his datapads scattering.

"Lord Vader!"

"I trust," Vader drawled, anger already drawing him close, "that you are prepared, gentlemen?"

The man who'd scattered the datapads grabbed a few then sat back in his chair, hastily assembled pile clutched to his chest. His rank bar identified him as the representative of the Coruscanti Police Force; Vader thought he looked vaguely familiar.

"Sergeant Regor," Vader greeted, plucking the name out of the man's mind. He didn't bother remembering the likes of people like him, but it was a suitable intimidation tactic.

He noticed a datapad he'd forgotten on the floor and lifted it with the Force to set it down neatly on top of his stack.

"It has been quite some time."

"Indeed, my lord." He licked his lips nervously, choosing to watch his spider-like hands twitch rather than meet the eye plates on Vader's mask.

"I trust my son has not engaged in any _reckless, dangerous stunts_ while I was away?"

Because this had been one of the men who'd tried to arrest _Luke_ instead of the assassin, Vader was starting to remember. Evidently not one Vader had strangled, but one who certainly remembered the fate of his co-workers.

"No, my lord."

"Good," Vader purred. He knew it was a lie—he didn't think Luke knew _how_ to fly in a way that wasn't reckless or dangerous—but it was good that the police had got the message of the consequences of risking his son. It would decrease the chance of anything like that assassination attempt happening again.

He spun round sharply, secretly enjoying the way his cape snapped at his heels, and clasped his hands behind his back. He did not take the unusually large seat at the head of the oblong table; all officers who dealt with him by now should know he preferred to stand. Something about having him looming over their heads kept their tongues still and their reports brief.

"Well, then. Begin."

The officers exchanged nervous looks. The one on Regor's right—one of the _Executor_'s officers, lieutenant, likely assigned as his personal aide for this mission—nodded encouragingly. The other officers, all various officials from areas on the planet Angel had struck, studiously avoided his gaze.

"Yes, my lord," Regor got out, then had to swallow several times, hand coming up to massage his throat. At this rate, Vader would not even need to execute him if he found the report lacking.

Then he began.

"The string of burglaries we've had in the last six months include targets of high economic or military value, such as Governor Pryce's Coruscant residence, the BlasTech factories and Sienar's offices. Tentative footage we have from all three of these examples show a humanoid figure in black, but it's a blurry image, from a distance, and it's often difficult to make out the thief—who the denizens of Coruscant have nicknamed _Angel_—from the background. Nevertheless, the fact that these attacks have been consistent, as well as consistently ambitious, in a way that no one-off burglaries have been seen to be on planet for years, we consider it safe to assume that either they're being carried out by the same person, or the same organisation. A team seems more likely—especially when one accounts for how the person contacts the Rebellion, as well as sending them the stolen items."

"I see." Vader hooked his thumbs into his belt. "Why have you not caught him before?"

"My—" Regor swallowed again—that was starting to get annoying. "My lord, I don't—"

"This is one thief—or team, as you have speculated. One _entity_. They are invading with embarrassing ease some of the most well-protected safe houses on the planet. How have you picked up _nothing_ with which to catch them?"

"They are doing it with embarrassing ease, my lord," the lieutenant interrupted, eyes averted in respect but her voice firm. "They are good at what they do—they leave behind no traces. No fingerprints, no blood samples, no hairs. Even if they did, we have no guarantee that their information would be in the records. The lower levels of Coruscant—"

Vader waved his hand. "I am aware of what they are like." They rivalled Mos Eisley for a haven of scum and villainy. His distaste from the previous night at the thought Luke would willingly go there resurfaced with a surprising zeal.

"Exactly," Regor jumped back on the bandwagon. "We have a planet with a population of more than a trillion to police; we have no way of tracking down this thief without catching them in the act, then interrogating them for all they know."

"I doubt that, sergeant," Vader intoned. "I am sure _I_ have ways, if you do not. Tell me everything you know about them, then I shall be taking over this investigation. Clearly you do not have the competence to carry it out."

Regor nodded quickly. "Yes, my lord." He lifted his datapad again and read, "Interviews, undercover and otherwise, with the populace show that the general consensus is that Angel is military-trained, due to the distinctive academy accent heard by several listeners who suspected that the figure was the notorious thief—"

Vader couldn't listen to this absurd drivel anymore. They were the _Imperial Navy_; they did not put stock in hearsay and _speculation_. He flung out his hand and the datapad landed in it neatly. He scanned the rest of the text himself.

_...such interviews also indicate that Angel is often followed around by wild tooka cats..._

The datapad crumpled on itself.

"My son had a phase where he desperately wanted a tooka cat as a pet," he drawled to Regor, taking a spiteful pleasure in the way he stiffened. "Would you care to investigate _him_?"

Regor couldn't shake his head fast enough. "No, my lord—"

"Then I cannot see any reason why such inane gossip should make its way into an official report as _evidence_. Clearly, taking over this operation is a necessity."

Vader checked the chrono in the corner of his vision. It was Palpatine's precious parade in a few hours; while he was sure he wouldn't be late—it could not begin without him—he still wanted some time to brief Luke on exactly how to deal with the Emperor before attending.

"Listen to the rest of this idiocy," he snapped at the lieutenant, who flinched but saluted. "Summarise it in a report and send it to me. I have the patience to sit through it no longer."

He tossed the wrecked datapad aside, screen black, and strode out of the room.

* * *

Vader sat through the parade stiffly, bored and tense, well aware that his master knew that—and was revelling in it.

It did not help his mood.

To be fair, nor did the fact that Luke very clearly didn't want to be here either—_and_ that his son was one treacherous twitch of the lips away from pouting—did not help either. He was on Coruscant to spend time with his son, but stewing in equal misery at a parade that was a punishment for Vader's impudence was not what he'd had in mind.

"So, Lord Vader," Palpatine chimed in to ask, leaning over the arm of his seat to peer up at him in what he was sure was supposed to be a grandfatherly way.

Vader did not buy it for one minute.

"How goes your search for this _Angel_? Yesterday you seemed quite anxious to find them."

Vader ground his teeth. "It has barely begun, master, but rest assured that we _will_ find them soon. It is only a matter of time before they slip up—I have already started considering traps to be laid"—he hadn't, but it was a good lie—"and people to target who may know of their identity—"

"Well then, clearly I have put the right man on the case." He lifted his arm to pat his elbow. Vader nearly scoffed. "I wish you luck in your search, my friend. Not that I think you'll need it, but after our lovely conversation last night I requested the police send me reports on their findings, and I confess to finding them quite disheartening. _Angel_. Being followed around by _wild tookas_." He affected a light voice. "I assume you'll _correct_ such inefficiency and incompetence in the police department, won't you?"

"Indeed I will." He was almost looking forward to it.

"But I have faith in you regardless. I'm sure you'll find this _wild tooka_," he said the words with disdain, "very soon. After all, I know you're anxious to get off Coruscant soon and return to your regular duties. You never were fond of this place."

Vader swallowed. He didn't dare contradict him, but that was fine: Palpatine did it himself.

"Oh, but of course. You wish to be here for your son. Perfectly understandable." Finally—_finally_—Palpatine dropped his arm from Vader's elbow. "Especially after what we discussed last night. If the boy is going so far as to fraternise with the Senator of Alderaan, he clearly needs your guidance. Perhaps even both of us would be needed to teach him the maturity he will need in order to ascend to the Sith."

Vader really hoped not. He didn't want his son anywhere near him—and he knew Luke shared the sentiment.

"Fortunately," Palpatine continued, and Vader _did not_ like that tone in his voice, "it seems that an opportunity has presented itself."

Frowning, Vader turned to look at Luke, where he was gesturing... and froze.

* * *

Luke could feel Palpatine's intent gaze on the back of his neck.

The parade went past below him. From their perch up in the balcony, it seemed to be more a sea of black and white and the occasionally bloody spot of red sprinkled among them. His father was behind him, head bowed with His Imperial Wrinkliness as they discussed whatever was on the Sith agenda today; their presence—and the usual lecture his father had given him beforehand about _propriety_—was the only thing that stopped him from putting his chin in his hand, elbow on the balcony rail.

He was _on holocam_. He needed to be _an example to the galaxy for Imperial poise and order_.

His father had _actually said that_.

The parade was nothing new. Nothing he hadn't been made to attend many, _many_ times in his life—his father won a lot of campaigns—and they'd been maybe the thing he missed _least_ at the academy.

He _still_ _didn't like it_.

He was so busy stewing in how much he disliked it that he didn't notice her until she was at his elbow.

"Luke."

He jumped so much he had to brace himself against the balustrade. He spun around, caught a glimpse of red hair, and rolled his eyes.

"You nearly made me fall off the balcony."

Mara's eyes glittered. "At least if you fell into the parade, it'd be more entertaining than this is."

"Glad you find my suffering amusing."

"Good. Because I do." She cast a glance back at his father and a smirk tugged at her lips even as she lowered her voice. "So, the lord of grumpiness is back on planet."

"Excuse you, that is my _father_ you are talking about."

"You're right. Forgive me." She cleared her throat. "The lord of sunshine and rainbows is back on planet?"

"No."

"The lord of kittens and akk pups?"

"Absolutely not."

"The lord of hugs?"

Luke hesitated.

"You're _kidding_."

"He hugs _sometimes_."

Mara stared at him. "No."

"It's true."

"Maybe so, but I refuse to believe it. I could do without any world-shattering concepts today."

Luke smiled. "I'll try not to drive you back to the Rebellion with my insanity." She'd been on her mission there for months on end, he knew—she'd returned to Coruscant around the same time he had.

He didn't miss the way she tensed.

"You do that," she drawled to make up with it. "But I'm supposed to be here to chat up that moff over there, find out what he knows about things he shouldn't know anything about, so I'll have to leave you to sulk about the parade in peace."

"I was not _sulking_," Luke said mutinously, even as he felt a pang of regret in his chest at her sudden departure. It was always like this with Mara: they would chat, tease each other, banter... then he'd say something wrong and she'd slink away.

Force, but it was weird.

She tossed him one last razor smile that didn't quite meet her eyes, and he watched her back retreat away down the balcony.

* * *

"An _opportunity_?" Vader growled. He watched the mingling of joy and regret in Luke's smile as she turned away and had the overwhelming urge to shout at the boy, here and now.

"Indeed, Lord Vader. Jade is a skilled agent, intelligent, Force-sensitive and reliably loyal to us. It would be infinitely preferably if Luke were to get attached to Jade instead of," Palpatine said her name with a sneer, "_Organa_."

_I think Luke has more than enough love in his heart for two people_, Vader thought, _romantic or not._ He didn't voice it.

Palpatine would see it as a weakness to be stripped away.

Vader did not want Luke's love to be stripped away from him.

"Jade is indeed skilled," Palpatine mused aloud. "Perhaps I shall assign her to help you hunt down this _wild tooka_ of yours, eh?" Vader would like nothing less. "She would be a great help there—you know she recently returned from a mission to Sullust, to crush a major Rebel cell there?"

Vader shook his head on autopilot.

Palpatine sighed. "Ah, well. Consider what I _propose_, my friend. The boy is young and naive. Not to say he isn't a credit to you; he is clearly very intelligent, and powerful"—his voice caught on the word; his greed was palpable and Vader's rush of fear equally so—"but he just as clearly needs guidance, before he goes _astray_."

_So you've said._

"'Clearly,'" Vader echoed dully.

Palpatine smiled. "Clearly."

* * *

It was on the flight home that Vader actually said, "You have spent much time here in the last year."

Luke cast him a wary look, before glancing back to the airlanes—as the only person Vader would ever consent to fly him anywhere, he'd sat in the pilot's seat with vigour and refused to budge—and responding, "Yes...?"

"You have spent this time considering what it is you wish to do with your life."

"Yes...?" He was smiling now, Vader noticed with some irritation. The moment he tried to be _tactful_, to approach a potentially sensitive topic carefully and imitate the loathsomely eloquent politicians he so hated, his son laughed at him.

"Don't be a hypocrite, Father," Luke chided lightly. "Get to the point."

Vader rolled his eyes. "What conclusions have you drawn?" he bit out. "Was that direct enough for you?"

"Was it direct enough for _you_, is the question."

"No, the question is the one I asked you. Which you did not answer."

Luke grumbled, "You spend too much time around politicians."

And Vader couldn't resist— "So do you, son."

He watched Luke's brow furrow... then clear as he groaned loudly. Had he not been shooting through midair in an airlane with a five thousand level drop beneath them, he looked like he would have beat his head against the console. "We are not talking about Leia again. You wanted to know about what _conclusions I drew_?"

Vader sat back, smirking under the mask. And so Luke pushed them back onto topic himself. Best to pretend Vader had done that on purpose.

"I... don't know," he admitted.

"Son, it has been six months."

"I know!" The speeder took a dip with the vehemence in his voice and in his gesture; he smoothly pulled them back on course. "I... don't know. I want to go to Skystrike. Or Prefsbelt. I want to fly..."

"But?" Vader prodded.

"But there are other ideas," Luke admitted. "And... I was thinking about what Palpatine said. Or, what you said Palpatine said. If I stayed on Coruscant, trained as an officer..."

Cold, cold horror pooled in the bottom of Vader's stomach. "You are not _actually_ considering that?"

Luke fidgeted. "I could rise up the ranks quicker. Make more of a difference than if I was just flying—make big decisions that save lives, not just point and shoot." He paused, then added, quieter, "Stay next to you in an official capacity, once I've finished training."

That had been exactly Palpatine's argument, Vader registered dully—why was it so apparently obvious that Vader wanted Luke by his side? That wasn't very appropriate for a Sith.

"You can do that as a pilot, anyway. I can appoint you to the _Executor_—I'll teach you command. No one will dare—"

"Father," Luke sounded frustrated and a tiny bit droll, with just made Vader's hackles rise. "I love you too, but that's called nepotism."

He pointedly ignored the first part of the sentence. "_You_," he said, shaking his finger in Luke's face, "have been watching too many your mother's speeches."

"Yup." They swerved round a large crane and shot in the direction of the penthouse. "I was thinking about foregoing the military entirely and becoming a politician."

"_Luke_—"

"'The advantages of the rich and powerful over the rest of our citizens have only led to a decrease in the genius our nations can produce,'" Luke quoted, his accent slipping into something a little more Nubian, with the same arched syllables she'd used in all her speeches, "'and the nepotism begins to show its ugly results when people gain positions through connections rather than any actual skill—"

"It's not nepotism if the candidate in question is of genuine ability," Vader snapped back. Luke reminded him of her enough as it was; he didn't need _this_ on top of it.

"Father." Luke's tone was firm. "I want to get places on my own merits, not just because you're my father. I had enough of those accusations at the academy to last a lifetime."

Vader started at that. "Who accused you of such a thing?"

"It's nothing."

"Clearly, it's not. Luke, if anyone is foolish enough to doubt your intelligence and competence and value to the galaxy—"

"You're missing the point."

"You have no point," Vader accused him, sitting back where he sat and crossing his arms, for all that Luke couldn't turn his head to look at him. "You are passionate about flying. You are not passionate about becoming an _officer_." He said the word with disgust. "You seek to stay on Coruscant and study to be one because you feel like it is what you _should_ do, not what you _want_ to do."

Luke flinched.

For a moment he looked so lost—so miserable—that Vader regretted bringing it up at all. Whatever Luke wasn't telling him about this absurd idea, there was clearly a good reason for it.

Nevertheless, he opened his mouth to interrogate him further—

—only for their penthouse to come into sight and all words to die on his tongue.

There was an unfamiliar speeder parked on their landing pad. Jade was standing right next to it.

"_What_," he hissed out, "is _she_ doing here?"

Luke glanced ahead to where he was looking. Vader sensed—and disapproved of—the spike of excitement he sensed from him when he recognised her but Luke just shrugged. "Dunno."

"You are the one who has apparently become _friends_ with her of late—"

"Oh, look," Luke said, and accelerated so they arrived at the landing pad and settling down slightly faster than was legal. "We're here."

"Luke—"

Jade had already approached. Luke practically leapt out of the car, smiling broadly at her—Vader narrowed his eyes at him—but she just nodded at him and zeroed her gaze in on Vader.

Luke got the hint.

"I'll be inside," he told his father. Vader sensed his disappointment, but ignored it—suddenly very aware of what Palpatine had said to him earlier.

Jade watched Luke retreat inside before she opened her mouth, but Vader beat her to it.

"Let me guess," he rumbled, hooking his thumbs in his belt, "you have been assigned to help me catch _Angel_." He said all the words with disgust, but _Angel_ in particular.

Jade smiled—a little bitterly, he thought. She did not glance to where Luke had vanished to. "Yes. I have. I'll be patrolling in Imperial City tonight—if any alarms go off, or anything suspicious happens, I'll be there. Particularly around the palace."

Vader, irritated that he was having this conversation at all, just waved a hand and made to follow Luke indoors. "Be sure to report to me if you find something _interesting_," he drawled, his tone making it clear what he thought of that.

She probably bristled. He didn't know. And he didn't care.

* * *

Luke was not wondering was Mara was doing talking to his father. And he didn't ask his father, either, so he doubted he would ever know, and he was perfectly fine with that.

What he was _not_ perfectly fine with was his father lowering himself onto the sofa opposite Luke in the living room and demanding, "_When _did you begin fraternising with _Mara Jade_?"

"_Fraternising_?"

"Answer the question, Luke."

He rolled his eyes. "She had that months-long mission in the Rebellion. Came back to Coruscant around the same time I did. I ran into her when I'd been summoned to the Palace to talk to O— to Palpatine. She was hanging around, seemed a little morose, and I had to wait to be admitted anyway so I started up some small talk. Neither of us were all that well-oriented in the planet, not used to it. I guess we bonded over that."

"_Bonded_." He said the word like it was a pet name for some slimy reptilian creature that had spat venom in his eye.

"Yeah." Luke raised a belligerent eyebrow, pointedly kicked off his shoes, swung his feet up and planted them on the cushion next to Vader. "_Bonded_."

His father made a noise that may have been a snort, may have been a whimper of despair. "I don't suppose she is one of the _friends_ you made whom you know I would never approve of."

"Heh. One of them."

He made that noise again, but there was something calculating in the way he said, "You ought to know that Palpatine approves."

Luke stiffened.

If Palpatine approved of _anything_ he did, he was doing the thing wrong.

His father did not miss his reaction. He continued slyly, "Certainly more than he approves of Organa."

Luke closed his eyes. "I despise you."

"I have only your best interests at heart, son."

"By trying to taint all my friendships with the implication that romance _has_ to be involved?" he shot back. "They're my friends, Father, and I won't stop being friends with them just because you don't approve, or because you're _worried about how it might look._ You've never cared about public opinion before. You're nothing but a hypocrite if you want me to start caring about it now."

He shut his mouth with a snap, breathing heavily. His father seemed just as surprised by his outburst as he was.

He worked his mouth a little more, then—

"You've been away," he finished quietly. "You've been away and— and I've learnt to live my life for myself, on my own. Not for you or Palpatine or the rest of the galaxy. I'm sorry if that's not okay with you, but I'm going to keep doing it."

His father was quiet for a long time, the regular rasp of his respirator looming in the silence. Then he reached out, took Luke's chin between his thumb and forefinger, and tilted his head up to look at him. Luke could feel his gaze roaming over his face.

"You have been watching _far_ too many of your mother's speeches," he said.

Laughter bubbled in Luke's throat; the grip on his chin fell away and he tilted his head down bashfully. "I had to learn something eventually."

"And indeed you have." The hand moved to his shoulder and squeezed it, lightly. "You're so much like her. I should expect it by now."

The hand dropped. "But... very well," he conceded. "I will respect your wishes and keep my commentary on who you choose to befriend to myself." He added, a little humorously, "It is not as though I can police it when I am away, anyway."

Luke smiled. "Thank you, Father. I... I _do_ care about your opinion."

"I know, son. But I have been known to be wrong before. I should trust your judgement more." His hand came back to his face, where Luke pressed his cheek into his palm before the hand fell again.

It didn't stay away for long, though. Luke was marginally surprised when Vader reached for him to gently pull him against his chest, wrapping his arms round his torso.

Despite what he'd said to Mara, it _was_ rare for his father to hug him. He eagerly hugged him back, resting his head against his chest plate.

"You are no longer a child." There was something a little wistful in his tone.

"No," Luke agreed, eyes sliding closed at the sudden pang of _guilt _he felt. "I'm not."

* * *

It was that evening, when his father was deep in meditation and about to sleep, that Luke snuck out.

The guilt had been building all evening, a queasiness in his stomach, but he crushed it; ignored it.

He'd told him: he couldn't live his life around what other people thought of him. Not Palpatine, not Leia. Not even his father. He had to do what _he_ thought was right.

So he laced up his boots, strapped on the belt and slipped into one of the—unmonitored—secret passages.

He had a promise to keep.


	5. The Theft

**...I think the updating schedule's gonna go out the window from here on out. I'll update whenever I can.**

**And, uh, let me know what you think of this chapter? Turns out that I find heists _very hard to write_.**

* * *

Luke had three speeders Han had bought for him on the black market, all of questionable quality but relatively cheap. He'd been working on them in rotation in the shelter so that was where he headed first, to pick one up. _That_ was a trip he could make more or less by foot, albeit with a few precarious climbs and jumps, but his home to the Imperial Palace—the _shelter_ to the Imperial Palace, certainly not.

The palace was the home of the richest, most influential person in the galaxy. Its architecture resembled that: built on top of the Jedi Temple, on top of what Luke had heard (from eavesdropping) was supposed to be a Sith shrine, Palpatine had had any walkways that connected the structure to the surroundings buildings demolished. The space they'd afforded to keep the traffic back—create a quiet Coruscant never otherwise had—was as much of a statement of wealth and importance as any of the gaudy baubles that bedecked the palace corridors. For the first few thousand levels down, the palace was an island.

Which meant he'd have to go dangerously far down, or fly there.

Luke decided he'd rather fly.

He'd tinkered with the speeder and was reasonably sure it was quiet, with minor energy emissions. And he wasn't going to take it near the upper levels. He was going to take it to the ruins of the Jedi Temple underneath then make his way up from there.

He'd spent time there when he was very little and overly fond of running away from his father into the palace. He could wind his way through the maze of tunnels and out the top. It'd be fine.

But before he managed to do that, he sensed something.

He was, more than anything, trying to keep his presence in the Force to a minimum; he didn't want His Royal Ugliness (as Han would say) inadvertently sensing him and bringing down all that Imperial wrath upon his head. But he recognised that presence and cursed fluently.

His father hadn't volunteered information about what Mara had wanted to speak to him about.

Luke would have to presume it was this.

Her speeder was a quiet thing too, lurking around just in the shadows at the base of the palace. Luke landed a few levels below her and cursed—_fluently_—as her speeder began to move down and across, in a leisurely diagonal pattern towards him.

She'd spotted his approach. There was no doubt about it: she was on the lookout for Angel, or whoever she expected to be stupid enough to break into the palace, and she'd spotted him.

_Shavit_.

Luke fumbled for the controls.

He had a choice to make.

He could shoot off into the night here and now, and return to the palace later. But if she gave chase, there was a good chance her speeder—expensive and official and _not_ questionably rebuilt for stealth rather than speed—could catch up to his, and he wasn't certain he could lose her in the starscrapers. She was newly returned to Coruscant, by a few months, but then so was he; while both of them would have no doubt _familiarised _themselves with the surrounding area, neither of them had the intimate understanding just yet that might give them the edge.

So the other option was... to keep going?

She knew where he was—or rather, she knew roughly where he was, and there weren't many ideal places to hide a speeder here. She'd enter the tunnel a little bit and find it immediately.

Unless she wasn't in a state to find him at all.

_Dead_ was certainly not an option. Luke would rather let Leia live without her precious holocron before he killed _anybody_, let _alone_... _Mara_.

_Unconscious_...?

Could he—

In the end, it wasn't up to him.

He spent so much time deliberating that the decision was made for him.

Mara was bringing her speeder to halt in front of the opening he'd used. It hovered there in midair and the fact that she didn't find anywhere to set it down was telling; she just swung her legs over the side and leapt onto the solid ground, lightsaber thumping against her hip.

Luke was so kriffed.

She called out, her voice smoother than it ever was when she spoke to him, and the two syllables of that stupid alias were drawn out hauntingly, lasting entirely too long: "_Angel_..."

His hand went to his nose. The full-face mask was in place, solidly, covering both his features and the bright hair that could so easily give him away. The black suit he wore was padded to make him look bulkier than he was; he hoped it would disguise him enough that she didn't recognise him. At all.

Because that would be awkward.

He flexed his hands, the dark gloves shifting with the movement. He was fine. All black. Just his eyes and a sliver of his lips exposed.

So long as he kept far enough back, away from where Coruscant's too-many satellites washed the sky with light...

She was in the entrance now and that light spilled the faintest grey shadow onto the dusty floor. She stood poised, stance open, but her hand hovered a little too close to her hips for his liking.

"Angel..." she called out again, like one might call for a favoured kitten. She unhooked the lightsaber from her belt and lit it, adding to the light an uncomfortable crimson. It made her hair glow oddly. "I know you're there; I can sense you."

A lie. The Force, even ignored as it was, rang with it. She was just trying to unnerve her opponent with her _occult powers_. He was pretty sure he'd been the one to suggest that tactic to her.

She couldn't sense him, but she _had_ seen him go in, so she _did_ know he was there. So, really, the point was moot.

He crept further back, _away_ from the range of that lightsaber's bloody gaze. His hand rested on the wall, brushed it. It brushed a corner.

The shadows seemed thicker, on his left.

His heart leapt into his throat.

He ran his hand further along, risking the whisper it made as the dust stirred; sure enough, there was another corridor just leading off this one. All he had to do was creep down it...

...and wait for her to creep past.

He didn't dare to breathe. His lungs _burned_.

Slowly, she continued to come forward. Her footsteps skittered away down the corridor. Echoed.

"Come _out_, little angel, and maybe your judgement will be merciful," she crooned. The sudden jerk—sudden _swing_—of her lightsaber nearly made him gasp out loud, but he restrained himself.

He watched her eyes glint and narrow. So. She'd _wanted_ to startle her quarry.

She prowled further forwards.

"Lord Vader is always in need of a new assassin," she continued. "Or thief, or whatever you are. Stars know Rebels aren't exactly concerned about the _moral_ way to do things, so I'm sure you wouldn't object to a little more variation in your dirty work?"

Three steps. Two steps. One step.

She walked right past him, the corridor's odd design working in his favour.

"Just come out, don't fight, and come with me willingly. We can come to some agree—"

He struck.

Night-soft padded footsteps, shields tight enough she didn't notice him until he was on top of her, the Force's warning a fraction of a second too late. He seized her wrist.

She cried out.

He winced but held on—_twisted it_, until it was on the verge of snapping and her fingers finally lost purchase on the saber. It clattered to the floor; he kicked it away.

She threw her head back.

It connected with his face with a _crack_, but he turned his head at the last moment. Pain rang across his cheekbone but he was already turning, twisting to avoid the kick she aimed at his instep, seizing her left elbow before it buried itself in his guts.

She had a bond with Palpatine, he realised. If she managed to get a message through to him—warned him there was an intruder in the palace—

She roared in frustration and _spun_, glaring; she threw a punch at him; he blocked it.

Then he seized her by the shoulders and shoved her into the wall.

She shouted out in pain, her fury _incandescent_. It rushed out at him all at once and he was painfully reminded that while he daren't use the Force, _she had no such qualms_.

The wall hurt when he was thrown into it.

But he came right back, got up despite the fact his back felt like he'd been used as a battering ram, just in time to see her summon her lightsaber back to hand and swing it.

He dived to the side, rolled to land on his feet, then leapt again when it crashed into the wall right where it would have diced his intestines into worms. The saber sheared a piece of stone clear out of the wall and he took the moment of distraction as it fell to kick out at her torso.

Arms still trying to yank the saber back, she took the hit hard. She went flying down the corridor, arm automatically coming to cradle her side.

It'd be black and blue in the morning, Luke thought grimly, but then she was up again and—

He dodged her kick and swiped at her legs while she was off balance, forcing her to pivot to avoid—and then he lunged.

She gave a startled cry as he _pulled her against him_, one arm going around her waist, the other around her _neck_. He pressed his eyes shut, begged forgiveness in his head, and _squeezed_.

A gargled scream ripped its way out of her throat; she stopped trying to elbow him and started clawing at his arm, but the jumpsuit cloth was thick and her nails could find no purchase. She wheezed, struggled; his breath caught, but he kept squeezing...

Then, just when he got worried he was going to kill her, he touched the Force _just_ long enough to touch her darkening, terror-stricken mind and demand _SLEEP_.

She still struggled.

He poured more of his will into it—he'd barely been _trained_, he'd need to ask how to do this again—and maybe it was his desperation the Force responded to, or maybe it was his innate power his father and the Emperor were so smitten with.

_SLEEP,_ he said, and this time she slept.

His— they had said that the target wasn't expected to wake up for hours after that. If all went well, Luke would be out of here in less than two. He'd make sure that palace security was contacted to come get her then, as well; he'd be out of here in a hurry, anyway.

It would be fine.

_She_ would be fine.

He took several more deep breaths and headed up into the palace proper.

* * *

The palace itself was much, _much_ harder to sneak around. But Luke had studied the blueprints to this place for years—his father had drilled him on every emergency procedure _just in case_ _anything should go wrong_—and he knew which windows had alarms on them. Which didn't.

Which were close to Palpatine's private Sith vault, and which weren't.

The vault was in the lower floors of the palace, surrounded by layers and layers of security should anyone want to enter. He kept all sorts of oddities there: Sith artefacts; remnants of the Sith Empire; remnants of the Jedi Temple, even, for whenever he was in the mood to gloat. (He was always in the mood to gloat.) Luke hoped Leia's holocron would be there.

He couldn't go through the _official_ way—it was guarded by the red guards day and night, all hours, and there was no way to get in without a royal invitation and escort. But.

_But_.

It _was_ next to a ballroom. Which was next to one of Palpatine's many unused guestrooms. Which was next to the office of a senator who was blissfully unaware of how close she sat to a horde of some of the darkest ideas sentient beings had ever thought up.

And that senator's office turned out to be right above the exit to one of the secret tunnels that still connected new to old.

Angel to demon.

It was even darker and more stifling here in the palace than it had been in a bastion of death like the temple.

But Luke had nicked Mara's lightsaber for the time being and the walls were not built to withstand one of those, as poorly wielded as it was.

Maybe Luke should try convincing his father to teach him lightsaber skills. It's not _Sith training_, he'd say, just a precaution in case someone (that someone probably being one of Palpatine's minions, like dearest Mara) tried to swing at him with a lightsaber and lop his head off...

But in the end, he was through the rooms soon enough. Once he stood in the guest room, he felt around the corner and planted a charge in a very, very specific place.

He'd been in Palpatine's precious vault before—the old man was fond of gloating, especially when Luke had been alone on Coruscant in the last few months. It spanned levels in the palace, some of its rooms more vital and heavily protected than others, each with a new layer of security to get through.

Thankfully, Luke thought he knew exactly where this holocron would be: in the junk section.

That was unfair. It was hardly a _junk_ section. It was where the miscellaneous things went, usually to do with the Jedi; things he couldn't fit into his neat shelves of Sith lore and Jedi hypocrisy but that he liked to keep around to showcase his own power.

It was also at the very bottom, with the weakest security (as far as weak security went), and Luke knew that the... dark side _energies_ in the room—or something like that—had started to cause some degradation in the surrounding walls.

And Luke had a lightsaber. The walls had cortosis lining. He also had a few explosives on him.

He stuck the thermal detonator on the wall and sheltered behind the bed in the guestroom. Five, four, three, two, one—

An ear-splitting _BOOM_. The wall shattered.

He coughed a little in the shower of plaster and metal left behind, but gripped the lightsaber again and glanced behind him.

It'd been a fairly small explosion—only blasted a hole barely big enough for him to clamber through. The noise might tip off the red guards, but then, it came from the direction of the vault, and any red guard knew what sort of stuff went on in the vault. It wasn't like its contents were benign.

Or even necessarily _dormant_.

Anyway. Luke was heading in there, and no Imperial guard would be there soon enough to stop him.

He pried his way through the hole and stepped into the musty darkness of the adjoining room, blinking for a moment as his eyes adjusted in the darkness. Then he glanced around.

The place was lit by a pale blue glow—the shelf of holocrons on the far side of the room. It contrasted sharply with the bloody glow of Mara's lightsaber and Luke decided he distinctly liked the blue more; the red cast... odd, shivering shadows on some of the occupants of the nearer shelves.

Luke's gaze was drawn to one. It was draped in cobwebs, but he could make out the slashed portrait of a pale woman's face, a mechanical foot and a double-bladed lightsaber.

He swallowed—he felt _cold_—and moved on.

The holocrons... there were dozens of them. He wondered what the Rebellion could do with so many like this, what their fledgling Jedi could become, if he just seized the opportunity to take them...

No. That was _asking_ for trouble. He wouldn't be able to get out of here again with holocrons spilling from his pack like a trail of glowing breadcrumbs. He just needed the one Leia wanted.

He called the image back to mind, then pulled the holo from his bag. He wasted precious minutes, listening closely in case anyone had heard that explosion, as he compared them one by one.

Then he found it.

Just a little above his reach; there were no chairs here for him to stand on.

He glanced around, despite the fact he knew that there were no eyes here to see what he was about to do—and nor was _seeing_ in a physical sense the thing he should be worrying about.

He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Reached out...

And the holocron flew into his hand.

He caught it hastily, glancing around even if he'd been quick, even if he knew no one had spotted him. He clenched his hand around it.

This was Leia's holocron.

Now, he thought grimly, he just needed to get out of here.

He crept out of the room again, back through the ballroom, the guestroom, back through his neatly carved corridor of escape hatches. It was in that poor senator's office that he heard motion outside.

He crept up to the door and pressed his ear against it.

Voices.

_Troopers_.

"Scan the area," the bored, mechanical tones of a commander clipped out. "They heard a tremor, again, and in light of these recent _Angel attacks_"—the scepticism and disgust was _palpable_—"they want us to check it out. One of you, check every room in the corridor; you, stand guard, make sure nobody comes this way. I'm sure we'll be told it's a false alarm, soon."

"Yes, sir," the troopers replied. They sounded just as exasperated.

"Get to it."

_Blast it_, Luke mouthed. _Blast it, blast it, _blast it—

The passage down to the Jedi Temple was in that corridor. A few seconds' walk away, but he couldn't make it because of two _damned_ troopers...

Could he knock them out with the Force? The way he had Mara?

He brushed the Force, touched it as lightly as possible, and recoiled.

Palpatine was nearby.

_His father_ was nearby.

For all that it was the middle of the night.

He certainly could not use the Force.

Which meant... the window?

He crept over to it and glanced out. Nope. Absolutely not.

There was a lock with an alarm on it. And that was _without_ him even _considering_ the fathomless drop and the lack of handholds.

Which only left...

Luke's gaze slid up. He fought the urge to groan.

Then he climbed onto the desk to inspect the vent.

* * *

Luke wished this could be the first time he'd ever crawled through a ventilation system. It was not. Being Angel really had its drawbacks, sometimes.

That being said, he was a person uniquely qualified to comment on the quality of various air ducts, and he had to admit that the Imperial Palace's were stellar. Not a fleck of dust in sight. It almost made the sound that echoed through them as he crawled—the words that were utterly heart-stopping on their own—that much clearer.

"...I am not here because of Luke. I am here because of _Angel_."

Luke froze.

There was a patch of light up ahead. Luke nearly scrambled to situate himself over it and peer down into the room beyond.

It was... an office, Luke registered. More than that, it was _Palpatine's_ office, near the hub of the Imperial Palace.

Blast it. He'd taken a wrong turn.

Palpatine leaned back in his ornate chair, steepled his fingers and watched Vader over his desk like some parody of a benevolent godfather.

His father stood opposite, on the other _side_ of that desk, breath rasping with all the looming presence and fatal finality it always held.

But it was obvious who was in charge, here.

"I do not believe that for a moment, Vader," Palpatine said, eyes narrowed. "You do not care about Coruscant. You have frequently expressed the opinion that the targets of this _Angel_ deserved it, for their arrogance and petty ambitions. This is the only time in the last eighteen years you have ever been excited to return to our capital, my friend, and it is entirely because you want to be near your son."

His father was still. For the longest time, Luke thought he'd deny it.

He didn't. He didn't say anything at all.

Palpatine waved his hand. "Very well. Continue this charade if you so insist—let people believe this petty _Angel_ is a threat. It could not be further from the truth." Luke felt slightly offended.

Palpatine leaned forward. "But there _cannot_ be seen to be weakness in my empire, Lord Vader. Your son must not appear _foolish_, _indecisive_ or even so much as publicly express _disagreement_ with you. If that means you must remain on Coruscant until the fickle boy has made up his mind, then so be it. So long as he does not choose unwisely."

Luke bristled.

His father bristled even more. And _he_ actually _showed it_.

"I suppose," he drawled, lifting his head in that gesture of safe defiance he so often directed at Palpatine, "your suggestion that he stay on Coruscant is the _only wise choice_?"

"On the contrary, my friend. I am an old man, and I understand that there may have been options I have not considered." Luke doubted it; the Emperor bragged about his _foresight_ often enough that the concept of something happening he _hadn't_ predicted probably haunted his nightmares. "It is simply the wisest at this moment in time."

"And _why is that_?" Vader demanded. "Why are you so desperate to keep him on Coruscant?"

Palpatine sighed.

He moved his hands to rest lightly on the arms of his chair, then peered at Vader intently.

"I want to train him," he said.

Luke forced himself not to gasp.

He'd known that was the ultimate aim, but...

Palpatine continued, "I know that as per our agreement we said that he would not be trained until ready, but I have been observing him these past few months and he is, quite frankly, much more intelligent than he allows people to see. And while I'm sure that his reluctance to _own_ that and revel in his borne superiority, as a wielder of the Force and heir to our empire, _does_ exhibit his... immaturity, while I'm sure that his ideas about the galaxy and his priorities are skewed—his association with Organa is proof enough of that..."

Palpatine smiled. His fingertips sparked blue.

"That's nothing some attentive training from myself can't solve."

Luke swallowed and—almost against his will—looked at his father.

He was standing stock still.

"You want," he said finally, "to train my son as a Sith."

"Of course. You and I both know what massive potential he has. Wouldn't it be wonderful for it to be _fulfilled_ instead of _wasted_, for him to join you as leader of the galaxy. As I said of the officers' academy, he could be assigned to serve under you even more quickly; if he also spends those years under my tutelage, he could assist you in every capacity as well.

"You know as well as I do that the rule of two is archaic and outdated. And with another Sith Lord in our midst, the Rebellion would be crushed."

Luke shoved his hand into his mouth to keep from screaming. His eyes were riveted to Palpatine's face.

Having to kneel in front of him... on the receiving end of his lightning... feeling the cold, oily touch of his mind against his, _violating_ it... calling him _master_...

He felt nothing short of revulsion.

His father did not seem all too pleased either—_thank the stars_. He folded his arms. "I have my doubts about this, master."

"Evidently," Palpatine said. His voice had turned cold. "But I assure you, there is nothing to _worry yourself_ about. The boy needs _discipline_—discipline you, clearly, are unable or unwilling to provide. You are too attached to him, Lord Vader, don't try to deny it, and it clouds your judgement. It would be better for _everyone_ involved if you were to... keep your distance."

Luke wanted to rage. He wanted to scream.

His father was distant enough as it was because of this... _hobgoblin_. He didn't need or want him increasing that distance, dragging Luke away from the only family he'd ever known...

"Besides, my friend. He is so much like his mother—and he has been spending so much time with the likes of Organa lately. If you allow this to continue on as it has, if you allow him free reign... Organa may adopt Kenobi's job, and young Skywalker may well betray you."

The room was drenched in cold. Luke caught his breath, ice crystallising on the air in front of him.

His father's fists were clenched, his shoulder so, so _tense_.

What did _that_ mean?

Luke's mother had been senator and queen; he'd spoken to her family on Naboo plenty of times; she'd died at the end of the Clone Wars under an attack of the Force, his aunt suspecting Palpatine to be at fault.

And Luke... he _had_ betrayed his father, he supposed, though every inch of him rebelled against the thought; he'd betrayed the _Empire_ at the very least. But why the comparison to his mother?

"And if he does?" Palpatine continued. "You have a clear idea on what the consequences might be—for him and for you."

Luke had _no idea at all_.

What the _blazes _was—

Palpatine sighed. "But ah, my friend," he conceded, standing from his seat, "you may be right. My foresight is... clouded, where the boy is concerned; perhaps we should consult something else on the matter? I have a number of items meant to enhance one's ability to see the future in my vault." He rounded the table to gesture Vader towards the door, walking like a frail old man—an illusion that couldn't be further from the truth. "Perhaps one of them will hold the answers you seek?"

Luke waited with bated breath for the door to hiss shut, then he scampered back through the vents.

He'd taken a wrong turn, clearly, so he retraced his steps, doubled back, as fast as he dared...

He'd just entered the ruins of the Jedi Temple when he felt the dark side go supernova.

Palpatine had discovered his theft.

Well then, Luke thought, tiptoeing past Mara, re-depositing her lightsaber and regaining his speeder. It was time he got out of here, then.

* * *

He got home safely and destroyed the speeder, cannibalising it for spare parts. His father was still at the palace—and _angry_, if Luke's tentative probe was anything to go by—so he took his time settling in, washing all the dust and grime and bits of shattered wall off of him with a real water shower before drying his hair and rolling into bed.

But he couldn't sleep.

He tossed and turned, Coruscant's bright, crowded sky shining through his blinds a little, and even when he tried to use an eye mask to block the light he couldn't sleep. It wasn't the light that was bothering him.

The holocron sat in that secret compartment under his bed he'd hollowed out as a kid. (He was pretty sure his father knew about said compartment, but had read too many parenting guides on respecting boundaries and secrets, so he doubted he'd ever come looking in there.) It burned its way into his brain.

Finally, Luke rolled out of bed and crouched on the floor again, despite his tired—and _aching_; Mara hadn't held back—body's protests. He reached for the holocron.

Something about this...

He grimaced. Checked no one was paying attention to the Force right now. Then he dared to open it.

The blue-tinted image of a young man not much older than Luke sprung up and he froze.

_"...keeping your saber moving is key to deflecting the fire of multiple adversaries. Fluid motion: one into the next, and so on. I've made some... _adjustments_ to the classic Form IV techniques that I think you'll find work well against droids and other ranged attackers. Here—I'll show you. One, two, three, four..."_

The figure lit his lightsaber—blue, Luke could tell, eyes wide, even if it would've looked blue anyway—and demonstrated the form Luke's father had outlined to him once, very briefly.

Was outlining to him _again_, apparently.

_"...again. One, two, three, four, pivot."_

He'd only ever seen one picture of Anakin Skywalker before he'd become Darth Vader.

But...

_But..._

He was sure.

As sure as he was of _anything_, he was sure of this. The inflections in the vocoder-less voice, the subtleties to the way he moved, the slight head tilt... Luke knew his father better than anyone else in the galaxy, and his father was staring at him out of this holocron.

_"...five, six..."_

He clenched his fists, eyes riveted to it.

It didn't occur to him to think what in the worlds Leia would want with this holocron.

All he could think was that suddenly, despite everything, he didn't want to give it up.

_"...practise these exercises mindfully, and you'll see improvement, I promise."_

The image flickered out.

Luke stared, the image of that glowing shape blurring in his tears.

He hit replay.

_"...keeping your saber moving..."_

He closed his eyes.

He suddenly felt as tired as— well, as if he'd robbed the Imperial Palace and made it out alive.

* * *

The Senate gardens were beautiful the next morning, but Luke was too tired to care.

They were always beautiful anyway. And he could just _feel_ his father's attention on him, all the way over from where he stood on the _Executor_ making even more forays into this _Angel _investigation that still made Luke want to scream when he thought about it.

The holocron was heavy in his bag.

_You said you'd leave me to my own judgement on this_, he snapped finally, when his father's scrutiny grew too much for him to bear.

There was a moment of silence, Vader's doubt, and Luke could just _hear_ Palpatine's poisonous words from the previous night—words he _wasn't supposed to know about_!—racing through his head. About Luke's _immaturity_, or whatever it had been.

_Stop spying on me_, Luke reiterated in a far more grumbling tone. _I know you don't approve._

_Very well_, Vader conceded. Even chuckled, a little. _I apologise. And you don't need to fear my anger or disapproval, Luke,_ he added in a tone which radiated concern. _I am proud of you nonetheless._

_I know_, he replied, and decided not to explain that the fear had nothing to do with his father's opinion on Leia—more with his father's opinion on the holocron burning a hole in his bag.

The holocron _he had made_.

Leia finally turned up and he smiled at her, trying to hide his jitteriness.

It didn't work.

"Are you alright?" she asked. He didn't reply—just gestured in the direction of the path and they started walking.

"Fine," he said, giving her a wan smile. "Just... tired. I had _difficulty_ _sleeping_ last night."

Her eyebrows shot up. Even _he_, as relatively untrained as he was, could sense her excitement. "I see," she said carefully, her politician's face cracking a little under the force of her smile. "Were you eventually successful?"

They looped around a tall tree with feathery leaves before he replied, taking the moment the foliage blocked the holocams to reach into his bag and slip the holocron into hers. "I'm here, aren't I?"

She grinned wider.

_You're an angel, Luke, _she said.

_Now that joke's just bad taste._

"I'm glad," she said aloud, ignoring his rebuttal and squeezing his arm a little too tightly. "You _know_ how much I worry about you."

He rolled his eyes. "My health is not in decline, I can assure you that."

"_Good_." She gave him a hard shove and laughed when he nearly stumbled into something he was _pretty sure_ was an uncomfortably large venomous flower from Felucia.

Finally, they reached the bench that was their usual meeting—well, _talking_—point, where they could be sure that no holocams could pick up their words, if only their actions. Where they could sense anyone's approach before they entered earshot.

Once they'd sat down, Leia murmured, "You know, I felt _something_ in the Force yesterday..."

"Yes, that was me. Yes, I had to knock someone out with that trick you taught me. And yes, I was too short to get to the holocron and had to summon it to hand."

"That's not what I was going to say," she said, giving him a look. No one could give looks as effectively as Leia could. "It's _dangerous_ to use the Force here—Palpatine will sense it and snap you up for one of his disciples in an instant, I don't care who your father is. I didn't teach you it just so you could get yourself killed."

"Leia," he took her hands, patted them, then dropped them again. She rolled her eyes—again. "I'll be fine. It's not implausible that I'd have managed to figure it out at the Academy on my own."

Two pursed lips, and Luke couldn't help but think that was exactly the face of concentration she'd made when she was sixteen and trying to grind down his mental shields as practise.

"_Especially_ with my father teaching me," he added.

Leia frowned. "But you said your father's not _supposed_ to be teaching you. If Palpatine gets too interested—"

"I think it's too late for that."

She narrowed her eyes. "What are you not telling me?"

"I just overheard some stuff while I was in the... you know, last night," he said. He squirmed slightly; despite how much he trusted her, intrinsically... he didn't want to share _that_ with her.

She disliked his father enough as it was. Any sign of conflict or abandonment or... whatever that passive defiance he'd ended up with yesterday was, and she'd pounce.

"I don't want to talk about it right now; it's not important yet. Why did you want the holocron?" He was genuinely curious.

She narrowed her eyes. "Are you trying to change the subject?"

"Obviously."

She sighed. "Alright. I..."

She swallowed.

"You don't have to tell me if—"

"No, I should. I trust you. And you're the one who risked everything to get it despite its..." She gave a nervous laugh, as far as anything Leia Organa did could be described as _nervous_. "..._lack of tactical value_, shall we say. My master wanted it back—wanted to show me it."

This was getting more and more confusing by the minute.

"Your master?" he asked. The word—again—brought up too many memories of his father's relationship with _his_ master. Of what he'd overheard the previous night—and who _he_ might have to call _master_, soon enough. "Like, a Jedi...?"

"Yes. No." She wrinkled her nose. "She's technically not a Jedi, but she's the one who taught me everything I taught you. It's not important here. But when I first turned eighteen, she and my father told me that my father—my _biological_ father, that is—was a Jedi."

Luke barely blinked; it was hardly a surprise to him. She was strong in the Force, as he'd had cause to find out when she'd slowly begun to teach him the light side techniques she knew, and Luke himself was the child of a forbidden Jedi romance. Why wouldn't anyone else be?

But still, something didn't add up...

"She said that she'd had a holocron of him, but that it was stolen from her when Vader attacked the base she'd been staying on." She smiled a little, patting her bag...

...and Luke froze.

"Thanks for stealing it back for me. You have no idea how much this means."

Leia—

That holocron—

_What?_

He blinked.

Leia's father was h—

_Leia_ was his—

His thoughts had ground to a halt.

"Anytime," he said.

The familiar platitude felt both more hollow and more meaningful now.


	6. The Family

**And the updating schedule goes out the window!**

**Okay, I'm not happy with this chapter, but I'm tired and it's sort of a point a to point b thing before I can get onto the juicier plot points I had planned. So here it is.**

* * *

Emperor's Hands were supposed to be subtle, (for lack of a better word) underhanded and—above all—invisible. It was rare that they stopped to use medbays.

But... well, Luke supposed that when Mara was on Coruscant and had access to facilities like the private medbay of the Imperial Palace, she didn't need to concern herself with such things.

He knew she was in there—he could sense her—but he reported to the office at the front as per protocol anyway. It would probably get back to his father—no, it would _definitely_ get back to his father—but after last night, and what Leia had said this morning, he found he didn't particularly care.

He was on edge. Verbal sparring with Mara always took that edge off. And...

He was worried.

(He did not allow himself to think the word _guilty_.)

The head medic gave him a hard, narrow look, but waved him along. "The patient has just awoken."

Luke smiled and thanked the man, then grimaced on his way in.

Then, when he reached Mara's bed, pushed into a corner, he grinned.

It was empty.

"You're clearly feeling better." He addressed the ceiling, but didn't look up from the bare pillow; his eyebrows went up instead.

There was a grunt, then Mara dropped from her awkward position braced between the walls to land on the bed. It _boinged _surprisingly loudly; Luke had to stifle a laugh.

He didn't bother stifling it when he glanced up to see the air vent hanging open.

He folded his arms across his chest, mock sternly. "Weren't you under orders to remain in here until fully and perfectly healed?"

"I was under orders to not interfere with the ongoing investigation, since I'd already failed in my duty once," she snapped back. Luke noticed that the injuries the bacta patches and bandages were covering... didn't match the injuries he'd— Mara had received the previous night.

He decided not to dwell on it.

He raised an eyebrow instead. "So you're being rebellious?"

"_No_," she bit back. Her horror at his tease seemed... unwarranted. "I can do it—I hate Angel, and I want revenge on him"—Luke tried to hide his flinch—"so _I can do it_. Master always says we're supposed to use our anger, our suffering, our hate; if I can just prove to him that _I can do it_—"

"By injuring yourself further?" He gave her torso a pointed look. There was dark stain spreading across her front.

She scowled. "Are you even supposed to be in here?"

"Got permission to visit."

"From _whom_?"

They both knew, and Luke didn't particularly want to think about the way Palpatine had smiled when he'd asked for clearance—_especially_ in light of what his father had told him—so he just snorted. "'_Whom_.'"

"Some of us were taught to speak Basic correctly, academy brat."

He just rolled his eyes. "Either way, it's not a good idea to make your injuries even worse."

"I'm not required to listen to you."

"How'd you even get the air vent open, anyway?"

She narrowed her eyes at his amused tone. "Why ask? You clearly already know."

He grinned and unfurled his fingers. A thin pocket knife lay on his palm.

"You _thief_." She summoned it to her hand immediately—even that tiny touch of the dark side made Luke feel cold—and glared. "You were by the pillow for two seconds, how did you—"

"Sheer skill." He smiled.

"No. No, no, no. Don't give me that angelic look—!"

He smiled wider.

She grumbled, "I hate you."

A pang in his chest, guilt—then he hid it behind another grin. "How flattering."

She glowered.

He sighed. "Would you like me to leave?"

She hesitated.

"Well," she said. "Considering I'm apparently _confined to the medbay_, and _you_ came to entertain me..."

Luke laughed.

"Get to it, Skywalker."

* * *

"Jade or Organa?" Vader called out the moment Luke stepped into the apartment. "Or a different one of these _friends_ of yours I would disapprove of?"

"All of the above, technically," Luke said, crushing the guilt he felt just thinking about Leia. He _could not_ tell his father about this— "And we _agreed_ not to talk about it."

"I expressed no negative opinions."

Luke rolled his eyes, but laughed a little. "Whatever you say, Father."

He finally entered the living room, and glanced at his father, standing in his vigil by the window. "And shouldn't you be up on the _Executor_, terrorising her crew? It's sixteen hundred hours."

"Piett is perfectly capable of keeping her running smoothly without me... _terrorising_ them all," came the prim response. "And I had hoped to speak to you."

"Oh?" Luke swallowed; violent, irrational fear that his father had found out about what Leia had said flashed through him. "What about?"

His father turned away from the window to face him, then, hands still tightly clasped behind his back. His voice held palpable disgust. "Palpatine remains interested in your prospects, and continues to suggest that you attend the academy on Coruscant. If we are to persuade him otherwise, we need to consider all potential options and assess their strengths and weaknesses."

"Okay," Luke said. "And what if I want to go there?"

Vader froze.

His mask was angled towards Luke; he fidgeted under that blank stare, awkward in how...

"_Why_?"

Astounded. That was the word. How astounded his father was.

Luke swallowed. "Well—"

"I am aware you expressed this interest before. I had _assumed _you were not serious. Why would you _ever_ want to stay near _him_ for any longer than you had to?"

Luke closed his eyes. _Because I'm an infamous Rebel thief who relies on the political and social landscape of this planet for my stunts?_

"Because I've suddenly developed an insatiable need to become a military officer."

His father made an audible noise of disgust and stared. "You must be joking."

"Alright, I was. But—"

"Is this about Jade or Organa? Because of them? So you can stay close to them? Because if so—"

"_No_!" Luke choked out. No, he had to draw the conversation away; if his father pried too far into the subject of Leia...

...what? He'd find out about _his sister_ and probably kill the Organas in his rage?

Or he'd find out about Luke's activities?

Which would be worse?

"Leave them out of it," he ground out. "This has nothing to do with them."

"Then why—"

"Because I want to be with you!"

Vader froze for the second time in as many minutes.

Luke barrelled on, _hating_ himself for the deception, but this was for Leia, for the Rebellion— "We've _said_ as much before. I want to be with you, work with you, but I don't want it to be because of who you are, I want to get there on _my_ merits, who _I_ am, and—"

"I understand, Luke."

"You..." Luke blinked, taking deep breaths. "You _do_?"

"I do. I am convinced you are _wrong_," he added pointedly, "but... I know you crave independence. I will allow you to come to your own conclusion on this; I have faith that, with _all the information_, you will reach the correct one."

Luke huffed. His father was not subtle. "I _am_ taking the Sith training into account here," he complained. "No need to treat me like a naive child."

"You're _my_ naive child," his father shot back... then paused.

And Luke realised what he'd said.

"...and where you hear anything about _Sith training_, young one?"

Was that fear he sensed from his father? He didn't know. It was drowned out by Luke's crashing panic.

"I—"

"Has Palpatine approached you?" he demanded. "Threatened or promised anything? Cajoled?"

Luke relaxed—marginally. "No," he said hoarsely. "I just... figured that was part of the reason he wanted me to stay on Coruscant. So he could train me himself."

Relief flooded their bond. "Good." Luke felt guilty at his own relief. "If he does, inform me immediately."

"I will."

"Promise me."

Luke sighed. Sat himself down on one of the sofas—slumped, more like—and nodded.

He murmured, "I promise."

His father stepped forward and rested a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I will arrange for a tour of the academy soon," he said. "I do not like it, but if, by the end of it all, this is still your wish... I will support your choices. I always will."

Luke hoped Vader thought he was crying because he was touched.

"I love you too, Father," he choked out.

* * *

"Breathe in," her master's voice said, calm and clear as the mountain streams trickling around them, "and breathe out. In. . . out, in. . . out."

Leia closed her eyes and followed the instructions, the Force wheeling about her lazily. It felt good to be back on Alderaan—she was lucky that her home planet was close enough to Coruscant that she _could_ pop back for a day or two at such short notice, without missing too many important Senate meetings. She let that gladness dance around her in the Force as well, until this little glade on Appenza Peak they always used for meditation _shone_ in the Force, tension melting from her shoulders as she slipped into the rhythm of the universe...

After a while—it could have been seconds, or hours, or days—Leia heard a faint chime that drew her out of it. Opposite her, Ahsoka also opened her eyes and smiled at her, a little wickedly.

"You feel less tense, now," she teased.

Leia smiled back. "I do. This always helps."

"How goes the Rebellion in the capital?"

Leia rolled her eyes. "Slowly. Frustratingly so." She shrugged a little, smiling wider. "But it has its advantages."

She'd brought a pack all the way up here, slung over her back as Ahsoka made her jog the mountain like she had every day when she'd first started to train her. Leia didn't reach for that pack right now, not with her hands, but she did stretch out towards it, feeling for the pale blue glow inside—

And tossing it at her master.

Ahsoka caught it lightly, looking amused... then her eyes widened as it dawned on her what she was holding.

"What—" She half-gasped, half-laughed, turning the holocron over in her hands. "How did you get this?"

"You gave me a holo of it, didn't you? I knew what it looked like, and you mentioned that it would be useful, so of course I was gonna find it." She paused, then added, "Or at least, find someone who could find it."

"I gave you those holos to show you what holocrons _looked like_, not to go rampaging on some heist in a Sith's vault," Ahsoka chided. "Where was it? _Who_ got it?"

"It was in Palpatine's personal vault."

Ahsoka stared in disbelief for several moments. "_Who got it_? Did they—"

"He got out alright, he's fine." Leia held up her hands. "And you ought to know who got it—you came up with the name. _Angel_." She smiled slyly. "He hates it, by the way; he told me it was like you _knew_ it would piss Vader off."

"Good," Ahsoka muttered. But she added: "That was the intention. I've heard Vader talk about angels... a suspicious amount, in another lifetime." She winked, but looked distracted. "I'm pretty sure it had something to do with that woman he was absolutely not allowed to be in a relationship with—the woman who must have been the mother of that son of his." She looked distracted for a second—pensive.

Ahsoka had known Luke's mother?

Possibly?

Leia wanted to ask—Luke had never actually confided in her who, exactly, would ever be strange enough to want to have a child with the embodiment of darkness himself—but she held her tongue. She didn't actually know what Ahsoka had done during the Clone Wars, but she was sure there was a _reason_ she never spoke about it. Or about why she wasn't technically even a Jedi, anymore.

But she was _curious_.

Luke's last name was Skywalker. Did that mean Luke had been the Hero With No Fear that Vader had adopted, or had Luke's mother been a relative of the man? Her friend had never told her—had never been _allowed_ to tell her—and yet she was being taught by a woman who knew all the answers! It was too convenient.

...it was _far _too convenient.

"And speaking of that," Ahsoka murmured. The holocron hovered a few inches above her hand and opened, the pieces shifting like one of those colourful puzzles Leia had been fascinated with as a child. A hologram appeared. "I have something to show you, seeing as you managed to return the only holocron of your father to me."

_"Keeping your saber moving is key to deflecting fire from multiple adversaries..."_

Leia sucked in a breath and inched forward, around, to see the figure's—_her father's—_face more clearly. He didn't look anything like her, she thought: he had pale eyes and pale hair—similar to Luke's, even, though the colouring of the holocron obscured that somewhat.

_"...I've made some... _adjustments_ to the classic Form IV technique that I think you'll find work well against droids and other ranged attackers..."_

In fact, the longer she looked, the more that initial rush of excitement began to fade away and the more similarities she saw between him and Luke. The chin, the shape of the eyes, the hair... The way he tilted his head; the stocky, solid pose the man in the holocron adopted to wield the lightsaber that served someone of _his_ stature much better than it had ever served Luke; even some of the inflections in his voice.

Wait.

Luke's voice and accent, already that strange hybrid of Coruscanti, the heavy syllables and emphasis of his father and that dialect specific to the academy.

_Of his father..._

And Leia realised.

"Is this Anakin Skywalker?" she asked.

Ahsoka... looked startled. "Yes," she said. "How did you know?"

Leia didn't answer. Her head was spinning.

Then she was leaning forward again, even more eagerly than before. She could _definitely_ see Luke in him; her friend had to be his biological son, then, adopted by Vader. Her—

_Her_—

Luke's stunned expression back in the gardens was starting to make sense, now.

"I guessed," she said, watching the holocron loop with a growing smile on her face. "He looks so much like— like a friend of mine."

"Yes." Ahsoka twitched. "About that."

Leia frowned.

"Your father isn't dead."

She frowned deeper... then she thought of Luke.

"He survived, but as a twisted, evil version of his former self—he was the one we've been trying to hide you from, all these years."

From thinking about Luke, it was not difficult to deduce what came next.

"Vader?" she asked quietly.

Ahsoka looked pained. "Vader," she confirmed. "Leia, I'm sorry."

"So." She tried to wrestle the smile off her face—Ahsoka's confusion was only mounting and mounting and mounting in the Force—but she couldn't quite. "That means—"

"Vader is your father," Ahsoka confirmed. "Leia, I'm so sorry—"

"—Luke is my brother?"

"...what?"

Ahsoka's brow furrowed. "Luke?"

Leia nodded eagerly, gesturing to the holocron. "Luke Skywalker. Vader's son."

Ahsoka tilted her head. "You know him?"

"He was at the academy when I was forced to go there," she said. She was practically _bouncing_ where she sat. "Luke Skywalker. He's my best friend."

"Your—" Ahsoka blinked. "Your best friend is _Darth Vader's son_?"

"Yes! I need to tell him—"

"_Don't_."

Leia blinked. Ahsoka looked... terrified.

"Leia..." She shook her head. "He stands to inherit the Empire, he's the heir to the Sith—"

"You just said he's my brother!"

"And _Vader_ is your father!"

Ahsoka stretched a hand out towards her. Leia's eyes automatically found the slight discolouration between skin and synthskin; then she understood her master's fear.

"Obi-Wan was trying to smuggle Luke to safety when Vader hunted him down and left him with a smoking hole in his chest," Ahsoka said, "ripped the baby screaming from his arms! That child has been with Vader, _and Palpatine_, ever since." Her voice softened. "You can't tell him this. How do you know he wasn't assigned to get close to you and betray you?"

"He's..." How could she even _think_ that? "He's _Luke_, that's why! She shook her head. "He's my best friend."

"You can't tell him," Ahsoka urged. "If he tells his father, and Vader finds out..."

_That_... did quiet her for a moment.

Luke was her brother. That was something to be rejoiced at. But Vader...

She did not want Vader for a father.

A murderer, a tyrant, who'd run through this _Obi-Wan_ to retrieve his infant son; what would he do for his teenage daughter?

Still.

"I'm going to tell him," Leia said. Ahsoka opened her mouth to object and Leia barrelled on before she could. "You can't stop me, I _am_ going to tell him. And besides," she added, "I'm pretty sure he already knows."

Ahsoka froze. "_How_?"

"Because I've never seen him look more surprised than when I told him the man on this holocron was my biological father," she said. "Nor excited."

"You—" Ahsoka looked so, so confused, poor woman. "You _told_ him? About the holocron?"

"Of course. It was Luke who risked everything to _get _me the holocron."

"_What_?"

Leia hadn't told anyone this. The only person who knew the full truth about Angel were her and Luke; even Han didn't know who, exactly, Luke was. It was better that way for secrecy.

And it made it a thrilling secret to tell.

Leia smiled. "Who do you think it is running around and adopting your nickname _Angel_?"

Ahsoka stared.

Stared some more.

Her mouth opened and closed like a Mon Calamari's.

Finally, she shook her head, laughed, and said something that... didn't quite make sense to Leia.

She said, "Padmé's child _indeed_."

* * *

Yellow eyes narrowed on a grainy holo. Specifically, on the figure in the holo, glancing wildly around the office of the (now late) Senator of Nubia, before listening at the door and leaping for the air vent in the ceiling, vanishing from sight.

He had viewed this sequence dozens of times in the last hour. The dark side fuelled his meditations in a heady rush of eagerness and offence at this slight, slippery _burglar_ breaching _his_ most sacred of sanctuaries. Oh, when this _Angel_ was caught he would see them strung limb from limb for their daring, their agony would be boundless...

But only when Angel was caught. And no amount of the dark side would help him catch them now: he'd left no trace, save tracks that petered out after a mere few metres, a shattered wall. That Jade had fought them suggested they'd entered through the few basement corridors of the Jedi Temple that hadn't been converted into his palace, for whatever reason; they would have more guards patrolling down there from now on.

But he suspected it wouldn't help. Angel was unlikely to return here again; they'd clearly only come for one thing. The entire array of his Sith collection had lain at their fingertips, and yet they'd taken one holocron.

Interesting.

Skywalker's apprentice still lived, he knew. She was perhaps the only one who may have an interest in a token of a dead, scorned past; her, or any of the other brats who fancied themselves Jedi. Fancied themselves _worthy_ of the power they scraped from what few midichlorians their blood brimmed with.

_Power..._

He could sense nothing of this attack, but those he controlled might well be able to. Vader, perhaps, though the man had never had much luck in the way of _visions_; no. Young Skywalker would be a better choice.

He would summon him as soon as possible then, he decided. Reticent or not, that boy held galaxies of strength in his slim frame and it _would_ be made to serve him eventually.

Then those eyes narrowed as the holo repeated itself.

_Slim frame..._

Angel leapt into the air vent and shimmied through.

Not many human adults were small enough to fit in there.

Interesting.

But that was all it was: interesting. He turned away from the holo in disgust, peering out into the darkness of his throne room. Skywalker would come here tomorrow morning, he decided, and would tell him what he saw; he would not be allowed to leave until he had.

There was a threat building in his Empire. It was not major yet, but it had the potential to be—like a droplet that started a flood.

Like a spark that started a blaze.

Coruscant's guardian angel had to be caught before they could embarrass his regime any further. And especially before Vader could use them as an excuse to pull his son further out of his grasp.

Palpatine steepled his fingers, elbows on the arms of his throne, and plotted.


	7. The Academy

**I'm... not 100% happy with this chapter; I think it feels kinda rushed? I'm not sure, but it's an important plot point and while it changed a lot, it's definitely affected the overall story for the better, so I'm just gonna post it :)**

* * *

Luke's father had said he'd be open to Luke deciding to attend the Coruscant Academy, but Luke hadn't expected that to entail getting woken far too early in the morning two days later by a metaphysical force ripping the duvet right off of his bed.

Well, _sure_ he'd been woken even earlier by a semi-aggressive comm from Leia that demanded they meet up that evening, but _still_.

He blinked sleep out of his eyes. "Wha—"

"Get up. We are going to the Academy."

Luke shivered, glaring up at his father. To any other child, seeing the shadow of Darth Vader in their poorly lit bedroom would have been the very embodiment of the monster under the bed, the creatures that stalked their nightmares.

Luke just reached down to tug the duvet back onto the bed and whined, "You didn't have to do that."

"You were clearly very deeply asleep if my gentle probe did not wake you, and I have no patience for trying any other _gentle_ methods. I have no doubt that you were staying out far too late, and that is why you have slept far later than any of your instructors would have accepted; you have only yourself to blame."

Luke resolutely did not look at the clock. "And _why_ do I need to be awake this morning at all?"

Vader was already halfway out the door. He flicked the light on while he was there; Luke squinted against the sudden brightness. "You are the one who wanted to have a look at the Academy. The night before last I made some enquiries with the director and he was much obliging. They are holding an..." He said the word hesitantly, with not quite _disgust_, but not _vigour_ either. "He informed me that they were intending to hold their annual _open day_ for the children of decorated Imperials officers today. You will be attending."

Luke grimaced. At least Carida, or any of the other military academies scattered across the galaxy, had _some_ measure of... Well, they'd take anyone who was good enough, in theory. And he _knew_ that there were still blatant biases—he'd never seen a non-human present in all his years of academy education, unless they were cooking the food or cleaning the floors—but it wasn't exactly a secret that while elite, the Academy on Coruscant was so well-funded because _it was on Coruscant_. Rich, wealthy, _Core_ families who wanted to brag about their children but didn't want them too far from home latched onto that place.

Leia was right: going there _would_ crush his soul.

And Luke's father had never quite fit the Core family bill. "Do _you_ count as a decorated Imperial officer?"

"No one will try to inform me that I don't," was the simple answer. "Get dressed and get ready." He paused. "And make sure you are wearing something in appropriate Imperial colours for once, and kindly do not walk around looking like a character out of a child's cartoon."

Luke rolled his eyes. When he got dressed, he shrugged on a dark red shirt over his usual black trousers and boots; his father couldn't easily tell colours through his red eye plates anyway. He eyed the capes briefly—he _did_ like the flair they gave him when he was walking around in them, and they had lovely designs—but ultimately passed over it. If he saw any of his old academy friends there, they'd never let him live it down.

He heard his father huff the moment he stepped out, but he just smiled sweetly and said, "Shall we go?"

* * *

Luke's attire was acceptable and suited him, if nothing else, so Vader let it slide. That _didn't_ mean that he was in a good enough mood that he didn't snap a little when Luke asked, "So, would it have killed you to let me know about this yesterday?"

Vader's hands tightened on the controls to the speeder but they lifted off smoothly and heading into the airlanes.

"You were _busy_," he drawled. "Visiting Jade again—_I'm not commenting on it, just making an observation_—then dashing off to some sketchy part of the planet—"

"That _sketchy part of the planet_ is called the local mechanics shop, which I earn money by doing odd jobs for. I told you this."

Vader scoffed, swerving around a corner. "Why do you—"

"Independence. The thrill of accomplishment. Something to engage myself while I make decisions that will affect the rest of my life forever. The list goes on."

"Are you not also continuing your education?"

"Yeah?" Luke leaned back in his seat, his gaze catching on a particularly bright starscraper they passed. "I have language classes a few times a week. There's this kid in the south end of Imperial City who I'm coaching for the standardised tests. I am _doing stuff_ with my life, you know."

"I have no doubt about it. My only worry is that most of it seems to be _at night_. Your reluctance to get up this morning only proves it."

Luke tensed slightly at that. Vader... regretted hitting whatever nerve he'd hit, but didn't apologise.

"I know you are responsible and intelligent enough to make your own decisions," he said humorously, "but _honestly_."

Luke rolled his eyes, but looked away.

The rest of the journey was made in silence. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence—much like Padmé had been, Luke was _excellent_ at making silences excruciating whenever he was angry with him; this was not that—but nevertheless, Vader was glad when they finally set down on the Academy grounds.

An older student, wearing a smart, gleaming badge and holding a clipboard, approached them. Then he caught a glimpse of Vader in the pilot's seat and made to skedaddle.

Luke chucked his seat belt off and took off after him. "Wait—!"

Vader let him go. He had no interest in chasing down aspiring officers to his navy who didn't have the fortitude to deal with him himself, and besides...

His comlink was buzzing.

He would not care—would ignore it, in fact—but the only person who ever commed him like this was...

Well.

The Emperor's visage materialised there and then in the speeder, about the size of Vader's fist, hovering above the comlink. Vader was unable to kneel, but he bowed his head in what he hoped was a sufficiently subservient manner.

"Master."

_"Lord Vader,"_ Palpatine greeted. _"I am aware that you are busy with your son at the Academy, and I approve of both of you beginning to actually take a vital, vested interest in his future."_ Vader wondered how Palpatine knew all of this, then gave up; his master always knew. _"So I shall keep this brief. _

_"I want young Skywalker to report to me tomorrow morning. I have need of services only he may be able to provide. I trust you will pass on the message?"_ He paused, then added drolly, _"Since I have no doubt he will ignore any attempts of mine to contact him directly."_

His heart clenched. "I... will, master."

_"Good. I wish you luck today, old friend."_ He smiled slightly. _"Try not to murder any politically valuable officers' brats."_

The image winked out.

Vader sat for a few moments, letting the respirator breathe for him. Then he got out of the speeder, glanced around, and made his way over to Luke.

The sheer, permacrete face of the Academy rose sharply in front of him, with the grounds to the left and right. It had taken up entire airlanes of space when it was built: bridges large enough to serve as parade grounds arched over civilian speeders far below; the spires were to the surrounding district what the Imperial Palace's spires were to Imperial City; it sat like a squat grey Hutt on a planet of tall grey bristles, and threw its weight around just as much.

Luke was standing off to the side of the entrance, something in his posture at ease but military-straight, in a way Vader hadn't seen him since before he'd graduated. His gaze moved briefly, disinterestedly, to the person he was speaking with. A tall, dark-haired boy with a similar posture.

Ah. An Academy friend, then.

He strode right at Luke, ignoring the many people who squawked in sudden fear when they realised who he was, and stopped perhaps a metre away from the two boys, thumbs hooked into his belt.

"Did you catch that cadet?" he asked.

Luke's friend had stiffened notably, though to his credit he did a good job of hiding it. Vader ignored him.

Luke huffed a laugh. "Yeah. He was a lot friendlier once _you_ were out of the picture."

"Most people appear to be."

Luke met his eye steadily, the corner of his lip twitching. _Stop intimidating my friend_.

_Stop making friends with people easily intimidated._

_I do. You call them inappropriate and constantly make your irritation clear._

_That's entirely—_

"This is Zev Veers," Luke said. He gestured to his friend, whose eyes bulged and he swallowed tightly. "Zev, this is my father."

Veers grimaced. It was a valiant attempt at a nervous smile. "Pleased to meet you, sir. I'm—"

"General Veers's son, are you not?"

Veers paused, then nodded. "Yes." He was slowly finding his voice again, Vader observed, though not admirably quickly.

He nodded sharply. "Your father is one of the few officers in the Imperial Navy I can stand. I am sure that you will prove a credit to him."

He turned to Luke. "Have you—"

"Actually," Luke said. "Zev and I were just gonna walk around on our own. There's no need to have a large, intimidating shadow dogging our footsteps." He smiled sweetly.

Vader gave an audibly sigh and—he had to admit—enjoyed the astonishment radiating from Veers as he said, "If you insist, little one."

"You're just glad you don't have to deal with officers or politicians."

"I am glad my son has enough independence that I do not have to escort him everywhere he goes," he shot back. He jabbed his finger in his face. "Contact me when you are finished."

"Yes, Father." Luke grabbed his friend's arm and pulled him towards the door. "Let's go."

* * *

"He's _terrifying_."

Luke laughed at the thought—and Zev's milk-pale skin. "Nah, he's a lot of bluster."

"With the bite to back it up!"

"He complimented you, didn't he?" Luke pulled them into a line to join a tour and finally let go of Zev's arm. "That means he doesn't hate you. He was just messing with you."

Though, he had to admit Zev had a point. Something about his father's basilisk stare, when you didn't know what he was thinking, was enough to strip any organism down to the ingrained fight or flight instincts that had kept their species alive. It was a wonder Luke had ever got sick as a child.

"But hey, don't worry about him," Luke pointed out. "He's not coming with us. We're fine. We can look around this shining example of the Empire's might"—there was no audible sarcasm in his voice, but Zev knew him well enough to hear it anyway—"with all the enthusiasm of a fresh new recruit."

Zev tried to smile. Failed, and muttered, "I'm only here because of my father."

"Oh, trust me." Luke didn't smile; he twisted his lips bitterly. He couldn't possibly explain the entire complicated mess of Angel and Palpatine and Sith training and the undying urge to make Vader proud to Zev, but he _could_ say: "Me too."

The tour led them through the grand hall of the Academy first. Luke shuddered as they passed under the mandatory portrait of the Emperor: he seemed to glare down at them all, and Luke couldn't help the feeling that the man himself was watching him, through the Force, at that moment.

The cadets leading them chanted and saluted to the portrait, before guiding the group to do the same. Luke did it automatically, his lips forming the words before he could even think them, barely understanding this oath that pledged his heart and his body and—if his father let the Emperor get his hands on him—his soul to a man he despised. Then they'd turned around, and were being marched down the centre of the great hall. The portraits of various alumni turned their noses up at them.

Luke didn't recognise any of the names from the stories his father had told him, so he figured they'd either been offed or left to stew angrily in obscurity.

The grand hall itself was... well, grand. As hideous and imposing as the outside of the building looked, no expense had been spared. Burgundy drapes, high windows, an ornate podium and a ridiculous amount of steps needed to reach the stage. There was even a throne at the back of the stage, lest His Austere Majesty one day deign to grace them with his precious.

Luke wrinkled his nose—then smoothed it, before he got reported to the ISB. Again.

That had not been fun.

After that obvious display of might, the cadets seemed smugger in their explanations of things, and moved into the next room quickly, without too much fuss. It was dark, and Luke couldn't tell what the room would have been used for under normal circumstances but in this case it was set up as a small cinema, with chairs lined up in the dark and a holoprojector ready to play.

Luke and Zev exchanged a look.

A short introductory film.

Great.

It opened on darkness. A shot of Coruscant sparkled into existence as it turned and the lights flickered on, before showing a view of the academy, of students working and training. The Imperial march started playing the moment they came onto the screen, and grew louder when—

When the shot changed to one of the grand hall they'd just walked through, but Luke turned his head when he thought he saw a flicker in the darkness, or _felt_...

...an intent, strong and focused,; something was coming, and he couldn't sense malevolence, not by a long shot, but there was warning in that feeling too...

...an elbow bury itself in his side.

"Luke," Zev hissed. "Pay attention."

He jerked himself out of his stupor. One of the cadets was glaring at him. The holovid was now showing an interview with the director of the academy, a grey man in a grey uniform with a grey, monotonous tone of voice.

_"...of course all our cadets go onto illustrious careers and highly exciting posts, all instrumental in the continuing security of our great Empire; the statistics for the amount of Rebels killed by our most recent graduating class alone make all the effort and complications of running an establishment like this worth it..."_

Luke thought this was as dull as it could get, but he glanced around to see people nodding in agreement. The adults in the room, who _had_ had to frogmarch their offspring this far, were starting to relax their grips with smug smiles and satisfaction; the other potential cadets...

There was a girl transfixed by the video, a little to the right. The blue light played over her pale cheeks, her round eyes; the eagerness in her face as she watched the callous description of brutal mass slaughters—_"our victories on Ryloth, Kashyyyk, Garel"_—left something turning in Luke's stomach.

_You know the sort of lies the Empire spreads about us at the academies_, Leia had said. _You've lived with them your whole life!_

And now, here, Imperial propaganda would win another row of bodies as cannon fodder.

This was what the Imperial academies _did_. Luke didn't know why he was so surprised about it.

_Do you know what the average person thinks the Rebellion is?_

_Murderers_, he thought, watching the holovid as a TIE raked fire over what looked like a transport that wasn't firing back, and it buckled in a pocket of flame.

_Scum_. An image of a battle-hardened woman—general, by the looks of her rank plaque—bestowing a gleaming medal to a young pilot vibrating with joy.

_Traitors._

The holovid ended with a shot of the portrait of Palpatine, staring down at them all. He seemed to catch Luke's eye; he seemed to laugh.

The lights flooded back on to allow them to leave; Luke unclenched his jaw and smiled adoringly before his adverse reaction could be noted.

Zev, he realised, head tilting slightly, was doing the same. His gaze met Luke's, then darted away.

Luke watched him for a moment longer.

Interesting.

They filed back out again. The cadets guiding them seemed freshly invigorated by the video and while they fielded the influx of eager questions, Luke hung back, just... observing.

He remembered the fervour he'd felt, that certainty, from when he was younger and... well, from before he'd realised that all the people in the Imperial Palace, the Academy, that he respected most were slaves.

Before he'd started daring to ask his father questions about the way things worked, and received the blunt, horrible answers of a tactless Sith Lord who cared about one thing and one thing only.

Before he'd met _Leia_.

It made him feel adrift, among this sea of certainty, but when he glanced at Zev it was pretty clear that he wasn't alone.

He'd need to talk to his friend about that later.

He'd need to—

"Do _you_ have any questions?" a snide voice cut in.

Luke tried not to show his shock, though he thought he might have failed in that regard. One of the cadets was staring at him—nope, scratch that, everyone in the small, tight group was staring, _and glaring_, at him. Apparently he'd not been as subtle in his distaste as he thought.

Oops.

He drew himself up into military posture and, imagining he was placating an older student just like the ones he'd dealt with at his previous academies, said, "No, sir."

The obvious respect helped somewhat—the cadet preened slightly, his thin lips curling up in a smile—but not enough. He still bit out, "Are you uninterested in serving our glorious Empire, or are you just lazy?"

_Our glorious Empire_. Luke wanted to scoff; as if Palpatine would ever be interested in sharing.

Instead, Luke just said, futilely— "I am paying attention, sir."

"_Really_?" He took a step closer. He was tall and thin, like a pole; Luke had to tilt his head back to meet his gaze, but he didn't take a step back, which had been his obvious aim.

Scornful brown eyes tracked across his (criminally non-monochrome) shirt; his tiny stature; his hair, unruly from months out of education.

"Are you old enough to be here?" he jeered. Luke knew full well that alienating certain _types of people_ so as to better tie its own together was an Imperial Academy's central mandate. He was also pretty sure that this cadet, as the undoubted heir of some great general or moff or Imperial politician, was just a flat out bully.

Luke had never liked bullies.

"I'm eighteen," he said calmly.

"You don't look it."

Laughter rippled through the small crowd. Zev hadn't made to sidle away from him, but he didn't make to move closer as well.

Not out of fear, though. He knew what Luke was doing.

The Force was pounding in anticipation of... _something_. Not this, though, something else, something—

Luke ignored it and, still calm, said, "I get that a lot."

A finger jabbed his shoulder. Luke didn't take a step back against it, but it did hurt. "Whose kid are you, anyway? Do they know their son is a softie? Or have they just sent you here because they want to beat the Rebel sympathiser out of you while they can?"

_That_ was the moment.

For all that Luke preached at his father against nepotism...

He let himself smile. Let the Force tighten around the cadet's throat for the briefest of moments—a gapingly empty threat, but a threat nonetheless.

The Force was _deafening_—

He said, "My father is Darth Vader."

The murmuring giggling froze.

Silence swept the corridor.

Luke smiled sunnily. "But I don't see how that's relevant. May we continue with the tour," he met his gaze steadily, "sir?"

The cadet swallowed, but nodded. His hand came up towards his throat before aborting the gesture halfway. The pungent... _terror_... that pulsed through the air was in equal parts intoxicating and revolting; Luke tried to ignore it, especially with how it pulled him in.

(There was something else in the air too... somewhere...)

_This_ was why he hated bringing his father's name up. But in this case, it had been necessary.

(Triumph...)

He did _not_ need reports going around that he was sympathetic to the Rebels.

The other cadet cleared her throat. "Now, the mess hall is just this way..."

The Force was drumming in his ears now, a cacophonous screeching, and nothing but tension thrumming with it—

They made their way along the corridor and turned when they reached a corner.

That was when the blast doors slid closed behind them.

A shout of surprise; one of the cadets tried to pull a blaster she didn't have on her, but Luke's head snapped back and forth. _Staring_.

Two sets had closed on them: one on either side.

They were trapped.

What—?

"Luke...?" Zev asked, staring around. "Are—"

"Quiet," one of the cadets ordered.

"Malfunction?" the female one asked.

"Hopefully," said her companion. He didn't look convinced, though.

Luke wasn't convinced either. The Force was _screaming_—

"These doors have a manual override, right?" he asked.

"I said _quiet_."

But the woman was already at the control panel, testing it. "It's been tampered with." Before Luke or anyone else could ask, she jogged down the hall to the other. "So's this one."

"Coincidence?"

Zev snorted. "As if."

"I. Said. _Quiet_." But he looked worried.

"Can you hotwire it?" Luke asked.

"Did you not _hear me_—"

"No," the woman said. "I can't, and I know Max can't."

_Max_. Luke saw Zev flinch at the name.

Max scowled, but admitted, "No. I can't."

"Can you?" the woman asked.

Luke nodded. "Yes." He glanced at Zev. "You take the other door."

"You know, you're the only one who actually _got_ how Kit managed to do this on Prefsbelt."

Luke laughed, already heading for and crouching by the panel. "I'm sure you'll do your best anyway."

"_Prefsbelt_?" someone in the group asked. Luke ignored them to focus on what he was doing, pulling a tool seemingly out of nowhere—even these too-nice clothes had parts for him to fiddle with in the pockets.

"What are you _doing_?" asked Max, but he was cut off by the hissing of the blast doors opening. He gaped; a moment later, Zev cursed and his pair slid open as well.

He strode back over to them. "Guess I remembered more than I thought," he commented.

Luke, rising to his feet, clapped him on the shoulder and smiled. "Evidently."

He glanced at the cadets. "Is there a protocol for this situation, or...?"

"A situation for when the blast doors get jammed?" Max scoffed. "Don't—"

His friend cut in: "Assuming it's a wilful sabotage and not a malfunction, we do."

"Julia, we have no way of knowing—"

"I tried to comm the administrator while they were fiddling with the doors," she said. "Comms are down in this area."

"On _Coruscant_?" someone in the group asked.

Julia smiled grimly. "Suspicious?"

Zev said, "So what's the protocol?"

Julia opened her mouth. "For guests, get them to the nearest shelter as soon as possible..."

Luke's awareness slid in and out of reality as she spoke, something... tugging, at the back of his mind. He turned to look back at where the blast doors had been, the corridor beyond. There was a right turn up ahead, and another set of blast doors if one wanted to go straight ahead, but...

"...I'm pretty sure the nearest shelter to here is the mess hall..."

...he blinked, glancing around. The Force wasn't screaming now; it was moving coldly, sluggishly, like the icy slush on the mountains after poor weather on Carida...

"...get there and sit tight protecting you lot until..."

The Force was moving, and it was moving darkly around Max.

The shot rang out while Julia was still speaking, but it didn't matter; Luke was moving himself. Before he knew it he'd shoved her out of the way and that tiny, tiny blaster Max had pulled from _nowhere_ buried a bolt his shoulder—his upper arm, more like—and he grunted in pain.

Shouts from the group—of shock, of terror. Luke wasted precious moments letting his brain catch up with what his body had done, lifting fingers to his shoulder and watching them come away red.

His pain had sparked in the Force. Coldness reached for him. _Luke...?_

When he looked up, Max had manoeuvred himself so Luke was between him and the rest of the group, and there was a blaster to his head.

"Don't twitch, Sithspawn," he snapped. "Or I'll give you another hole somewhere more permanent."

Luke had got tired of having blasters pointed at him _a long time ago_.

But he had no lightsaber and if he fought back now, he risked causing collateral damage with the others. So instead he did what he'd done with the Twi'lek man a few nights ago: he felt along the blaster with the Force, and quietly set it to stun.

He said steadily, "Are you a Rebel?"

"Evidently," Max drawled. Then, to Julia: "Oh, wipe that expression off your face, you fanatic. You're too blinded by your own propaganda to see anything without the Empire telling you it's there.

"_You_. Sithspawn's friend." Zev, who'd been slowly but surely creeping closer, eyes fixed on Luke, froze. "Don't move either—_none_ of you move, or I'll blow the head off Darth Vader's brat and you'll all be left to deal with that cultist's displeasure." He paused. "If you survive, that is."

Luke barely breathed. He remembered his father's voice, overlapping with Leia's voice now, a lesson both his teachers had seen fit to teach a boy who'd been shot at since he was born and would be shot at for the rest of his life:

The Tibanna gas in the blaster could be made to misfire.

If he kept a tight enough grip on it, if he was... _delicate_... enough, it just wouldn't light. Or— or something like that, but with the way the blaster was digging into his head, he figured this wasn't a time to get it wrong.

_Luke!_

_Father,_ he replied.

_What is happening?_

The Academy was in turmoil around them. Luke could sense that, could feel the faintest of vibrations through the soles of his shoes when he paid attention; his father could probably feel that too.

But if he'd gone back home, or to the _Executor_, after Luke had told him to leave...

"Max," Julia said, "what are you doing?"

"What we came to the Academy to do." A hand closed around Luke's bloody shoulder; a faint cry wrenched from between his teeth. "This is the nest of the Empire's _finest_. Your future officers, admirals, _murderers_. And if we can destroy you all on the day when the current elite's _children_," his grip tightened and tears sparked in Luke's eyes, "are here... well. The more the merrier."

_Rebel attack_, Luke sent curtly.

"So why," he drawled aloud, "don't you just shoot me?"

Max hesitated. "What?"

"Why don't you just—"

"Yes," he snapped, annoyed, "I heard you the first—"

The blaster crumpled in his hand.

Luke took that moment of shock and pivoted on his foot, swung his fist at Max's face. It connected with a satisfying _crunch_ but he recovered quickly, eyes narrowed—

Zev barrelled forwards and went for the throat.

When Max staggered back from _that_, Julia slammed him into the wall.

It gave an almighty _crack_ but he wasn't quite knocked out; Luke snuffed out his consciousness with barely a thought, before—

Well. Before anyone else could get hurt.

He stood staring at him for a few moments, breathing heavily, blood soaking the whole front of one of his favourite shirts.

Max was a Rebel. Clearly. Perhaps even a Rebel spy. But what he'd been talking about... the sort of mass murder that would have been...

That didn't sound like the main Rebellion he was working for at _all_.

Was it really them? Was it a criminal organisation masquerading as them? Was it a splinter faction from the rest? (For a splinter faction to have the resources to successfully infiltrate _Coruscant..._)

Good thing he was already planning to meet with Leia that afternoon.

"Luke?" Zev approached, resting a hand on his uninjured shoulder. It was only then that Luke realised he was swaying. "You alright?"

Luke looked down at himself. That _was_ a lot of blood. "Yeah."

Julia looked shaken, but pursed her lips. "Let's get to the mess hall. Max said _we_; it'll take a while for the rest of the Academy to clear his co-conspirators out. The shelter's got bacta patches," she added to Luke.

He smiled wanly and nodded, and they went.

Two of the party had slung Max's body between them to drag it with them. Zev walked next to Luke for most of the way, looking ready to catch him if he fell.

"So how many assassination attempts have been made on you now?" he tried to joke.

Luke followed along. "Can't say that one counts, to be honest."

"It _doesn't count_?"

"I have a list of criteria."

"You got shot!"

Luke laughed. It hurt. "I hadn't noticed."

They'd barely reached the shelter when he shuddered, going cold, but also smiling broadly. Zev frowned. "What...?"

"My father's here," Luke said.

Zev grimaced.

"Then I wish the bastards luck," he said, ignoring the look Julia shot him. "They'll need it."

Luke's smile fell at that; he fielded his father's outraged-concerned-panicked probe with, _I'm fine and safe_. It retracted promptly.

Luke couldn't help but flinch when he sensed the first few people being to die.

"Indeed," he said.


	8. The Evening

"Luke!"

The raw fury and panic in Vader's voice was _tangible_ when they staggered out of the safe room and into the mess hall, troopers helping the others out themselves. Luke cringed when his father descended on him.

"What _happened_?"

"I got shot."

"By—" He heard his father's voice catch, saw his head turn towards the unconscious Max, carried between two troopers, and Luke winced at what that cadet had coming for him.

"Father—"

The helmet turned back to zero in on him with a terrifying intensity. "Are you injured?"

"No," Luke drawled, "I just decided to dump juice down my front—"

"_Luke_."

"I got shot in the shoulder. That's it. It didn't hit any major arteries, and look," he hoisted his shoulder up so he could get a good look at the bulky gauze and bacta patches around there, "we treated it. It's healing."

"You are going to the medbay as soon as possible."

"Sure, but I won't need to stay long." He saw Zev raise an eyebrow at him behind his father—accompanied by a nervous glance at Vader, of course—and a tiny smile curled his lips. "I'm fine. We're all alive. Get back to saving the rest of the Academy and stop fussing over me."

"The troops are sent are perfectly capable of handling it on their own." _I am better off here._

Luke rolled his eyes. "I love you too, Father"—Vader jerked back at the words, said so frankly and publicly—"but you _can_ leave me alone and handle things personally. I'm not gonna break."

A finger sprang out to wag in his face. Luke was aware that people were gawking, but he didn't care. "You will take the speeder and go home, and have my personal medic droid see to you."

Luke smiled to himself. "Yes, sir."

"And get your friend to fly you." Luke met Zev's gaze again and stifled a laugh at the sudden tension and shock in his frame. "You are not to use that arm until the droid says so."

"And I presume until after you've doubled whatever recovery time period Embee has set me?"

Vader patted him on the shoulder—the good shoulder, that was. "Indeed, son."

"What if—"

"No."

"Heh. Alright. Go terrorise the staff."

"I am _not_—" Vader remembered, again, that they were in public. Most of the group had retreated to the other side of the mess hall, but they were still shooting them the occasional inquisitive look. "We will have words later."

"I know, Father." Luke touched his arm briefly, then jogged over to Zev. "You heard that?"

"Every word."

"You up for this?"

Zev laughed nervously. "Sure. It's not like I have a choice, anyway."

* * *

"_How. Did. This Happen._"

"Lord Vader, I—"

"I am not interested in your pitiful whining, Director," he snapped at the old, stiff man cowering behind the desk. "I want to know why this attack came from _your own students_ and how such agents have been able to go undetected for so long."

"We— we have officers looking into it as we speak, my lord, I will see to it that our very best interrogators question those agents we have been able to capture—"

"My lord!"

The man cut off his babbling abruptly as one of the officers Vader had ordered down from the _Executor_ strode in, closely followed by a lieutenant he recognised as the one he'd tasked with keeping abreast of all the updates to do with Angel.

"You've found something?" he rumbled.

The first officer swallowed. "Yes, my lord," he said. "Interrogations have commenced, particularly on the one you gave into Five-Oh-First custody, and what we've learned thus far corroborates with interviews conducted with some of the cadets—"

"Spit it out."

The man swallowed again.

The lieutenant stepped forward, brushing a tight, dark curl back under her cap. "There is speculation that Angel was involved, either as an organiser or an inspiration."

Vader stilled. "Angel is an irritatingly effective _burglar_. What evidence for this is there?"

"Reports from cadets who knew the insurgents, initial confessions from some of the insurgents themselves mention the name—"

"I will take over the interrogations," he said. "If there is a link, I will find it." He turned back to the director, still seated frozen in his chair. "I will give you one more chance to prove that you are worthy of command of this facility, Director. Do not disappoint me. Find the perpetrators and ensure this will never happen again."

"Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord." He bowed his head, then tried, "I hear your son was highly heroic—"

"Indeed, he proved more skilled than cadets you've been training for years, despite his _injury_." The room chilled just at that word. "Perhaps I should not bother sending him here at all."

The director got the hint, and bowed his head again. "Y— yes, my—"

Vader swept out of the room in disgust.

* * *

Embee was as gentle as ever when treating Luke, the result of years of his father's tinkering to make the perfect, most trustworthy droid possible. He still had the remnants of old stickers a young Luke had plastered onto his off-white carapace clinging to him, and was programmed to play soothing lullabies from multiple languages or theme tunes from all manner of children's holo shows, if Luke was so inclined to use the feature. He hadn't in quite a few years, but it was still lovely to know that it was there.

He tried moving his shoulder under the small mountain of bandages on it, and felt only the faintest twinge of pain shoot through it.

"The bacta has nearly totally healed it," Embee said in his calm, relaxing voice. Just hearing it made Luke want to fall asleep there and then, let his body and the bacta finish off the work, but he blinked to stay awake.

He needed to meet Leia later. He couldn't afford to drift.

"Now, I recommend you rest and recover from this incident. My assessment indicates no lingering trauma but if in the future you—"

"I think I'm fine, Embee," Luke said calmingly. He knew what to say to reassure the droid. "I'll go and sleep in my own bed instead of here in the medbay"—well, not _the_ medbay, _his father's_ medbay, which was why Luke was so familiar with it and why there was only one bed—"and check in with you tomorrow, is that alright?"

Embee tilted his head, the white lights of his eyes flickering slightly, and nodded. "I find that—"

"Unacceptable."

Luke turned to see his father looming in the entrance to the medbay. This was not unusual, considering it was his medbay and he spent more time in here—especially after. . . _audiences_ _with the Emperor_—but the fact remained that Darth Vader had the ability to fill any room with his presence in a threatening manner, and this room was no exception.

His finger was pointing at Luke as he stalked closer. "You will stay here tonight, no excuses. I want to make sure nothing else—"

"Nothing else is wrong, Embee just confirmed that!"

"I had thought that nothing was wrong with the Academy when I allowed you to attend that event. Clearly I was incorrect, and I will not risk you the same way twice."

"_Allowed _me?"

"Luke, look past your urge to be independent and get into that bed," Vader snapped. "You are _staying here._"

"I _don't need to_. As I said to Embee, I'd prefer to sleep in my own bed and have the confirmatory check up tomorrow. He was about to give his blessing."

Vader folded his arms. "Was he?"

Luke glanced at Embee. "Weren't you?"

Embee looked between them but, oblivious to the nuances of their human conversation, and said, "I was."

A burst of static from Vader's vocoder.

"And," Luke hurried to add, "you know that the moment you leave, I'll leave anyway."

"I can place troopers here with the purpose of keeping you in." But his tone was getting more tired, now, and he could hear him giving up.

Luke smiled—gently, gratefully, not victoriously—when he heard it. "And you know I'll just get past them anyway, Father. And _then_ what would that do to my shoulder to exert it like that?"

Vader tilted his head, durasteel fingers flexing in their gloves.

Then he huffed.

"Very well, little one. It appears you have beaten me."

"It's my mother in me," Luke teased.

"That it is. I knew the moment I married her I would never win an argument again for the rest of my life." He sounded melancholy, but fond. Luke sometimes wondered if Luke's presence made his father's grief for his mother better or worse.

"Nevertheless," Vader continued, raising his voice again, "I want your word that you will not leave the penthouse until tomorrow. Longer, if you are not healed by then."

"No," Luke said immediately.

He could _feel_ his father's eyes narrowing behind the mask. "This is not because of your injury, Luke," he said, dangerously softly. "This is because you were almost killed in a Rebel attack and until that threat is proven to be neutralised, I would rather not risk anything going wrong like this again. And while I am uncertain whether it will be cleared up by tomorrow, I will _certainly_ not risk _you_ having to deal with something going wrong like this again _while injured_. Do I make myself clear?"

"Absolutely."

"So do I have your word that you will comply?"

"Absolutely not."

A grunt of frustration. "_Luke_—"

"This isn't an independence thing again," Luke hastened to say. "But I genuinely had plans this evening and I don't want to miss them. They're not anything strenuous, I promise."

"Are you _sure_?"

"Yes! What would I do that's not— oh." He leaned forwards on the little bed to buried his face in his hands. "_Oh_. You're still hung up on the ridiculous podracing idea."

Vader folded his arms across his chest. "Indeed."

"You _know_ it's not true."

"I know. But it leads me to wonder what _else_ you are doing that means you so often come back injured."

"I haven't come back injured since you got home!" Well. That he knew of. The bruises Mara had left still hurt, but fortunately Embee had not questioned the days-old bruises and just treated them along with the blaster shot.

"Son, it has been a week since I got home."

Luke blinked. "And I haven't been injured in that time!"

He was not amused.

He stalked even closer, dark cloak waving around him, and towered over Luke. "I want your word," he growled.

Luke debated it. Opened his mouth to say. . . _anything_, when—

There was a sharp buzzing.

Vader pulled out a comlink, and Luke recognised the tone. The message that popped up was one from the bureaucrats at the Palace.

"A summons," Vader spat. He turned his attention back to Luke. "We will continue this conversation later. Do _not_ leave until I return."

He spun on his heel and walked out.

Luke glanced at Embee. "You said I could leave the medbay?"

"You can."

"Then I'll see you tomorrow for the check up." Luke pushed himself to his feet and headed out, tossing over his (non-injured) shoulder, "Thank you!"

He waited to hear the "You are most welcome, Master Luke," before he let the door close behind him.

* * *

Vader listened to his own breathing and tried to calm the intense need to see if Luke was alright—the _worry_. He knew his master would be expecting it, but he wouldn't _like_ it.

He strode into the throne room like a man possessed, barely deigning to pause to lower himself to one knee. But he had to—his master would not be pleased otherwise. So he knelt.

"Rise, Lord Vader," Palpatine said almost immediately, _irritably_, He cut a sharp motion with his hand and gestured him to join him in his stance by the window, staring out over Coruscant. Vader had an eerie premonition of... over a week ago now, when he'd first returned, and had to explain to his master why he was there. It had been dusk then; it was dusk now, darkness falling on one of the many, _many_ eventful days that seemed to play out whenever Luke was involved.

Sunlight caught on the windows of the starscrapers, glinting like earthbound stars in their own right.

"Sparks," Palpatine said finally. "Catching and spreading. If this were sunrise"—he held his hands out, palms facing the transparisteel—"this light would soon be ablaze."

"It is not sunrise."

Exasperated, Palpatine dropped his hands. "What did you learn from your interrogation of the Rebel who attacked your son?"

Vader ground his teeth at that way of phrasing it, but didn't deny it; he was who he was, in Vader's mind, and he was not about to change it.

"He was sponsored by an outsider, a traitor high up in the Imperial hierarchy, despite petty attempts to cite Angel as an inspiration. Everyone in the attack was, though it seems that whoever ordered it was a poor planner. It failed utterly."

"I wouldn't say that," Palpatine mused. "Quite a few people were killed."

"People of little importance. The infiltrators apparently had orders to take high value Imperial hostages alive, so no one of _political value_ was killed."

His voice was extremely tight. No wonder Palpatine commented on it: "And I take it that is why, even with a blaster to young Skywalker's head, he did not kill him?"

"He _would not have been able to_," Vader growled, "Luke is skilled, he would have found a way to save himself—"

"As indeed he did, if the reports are correct. You do not need to announce your son's qualities to me, Lord Vader. I am well aware of them—and well aware of what _I_ could make of them, with proper training and discipline."

Vader kept silent. _Discipline_.

He knew exactly what _that_ meant.

"He's strong, brave and clever—he certainly impressed some of the students and other visitors during the attack. If you would allow me to put him into the public eye, even, in lieu of training him... He could be the Imperial prince to inspire a generation, a role model for the citizens of the Empire, the symbol of the Empire's future, its strength, its resilience—"

"No."

Palpatine sighed, and patted his arm. "Think on it, my friend. You can leave the investigation alone; all that's important has been discovered."

Vader balked. "We still do not know who did this," he insisted. _Luke was _shot_; I will not leave it alone_. "We do not know who ordered it—"

"Oh, that is simple." Palpatine waved a hand. "I did."

Vader's respirator... skipped a breath. Or two. Or three.

When his breathing was finally in sync with it again, he asked, "_What_?"

"The open day is an annual event; I have had this organised for a few weeks now. Disillusioned youths, approached and radicalised by a shadowy figure..." He shook his head. "How easy it was is deeply concerning to me.

"Originally this was simply a way of invigorating Imperial forces against the _plague_ of the Rebel propaganda threat, the infection in our children and youth. But in the past few weeks, it appears that this _Angel_ has been lighting sparks and fires... ideas of Rebellion catching and spreading..." He paused. "You know a low-ranking member of court's penthouse was broken into last night? The assailant was caught and interrogated, but I've just been informed that _he_ cited his inspiration as Angel. Even without the thief, youth are flocking to the Rebellion like rats. We needed a decent disaster, to show people what the _Alliance_ really is—and, well, my attempt to tie our petty thief to it, ruin their _prestige_, was shoddy but effective."

He shrugged lightly. "When I heard your son would be attending, I had faith he would be the symbol I needed to demonstrate the Empire's might, but I ordered them not to injure any _valuable hostages_ anyway. I had no desire to see him among the dead."

"You... don't?" Because that had always been a threat, hadn't it—assassination attempts too close to successful to be from the outside, from the moment Luke had learned to fight; insistence that he leave Luke in Palpatine's care and the horrible premonitions he would get from the Force when it came up; the _possessiveness_ when he spoke of him which, now Vader thought about it, indicated something far, far worse than the desire to kill...

"Of course not." Palpatine smiled. "He is our future—as I said, the symbol of Imperial might. He is our spark to match Angel's, and he will burn brighter, hotter and fiercer than any flame this _rebellious little tooka_ could hope to conjure up."

"He is not ready."

Palpatine snapped, "He is eighteen, Vader."

Vader stiffened.

"You may not have been here for large swathes of his teenage years, but that was your choice. You sent him away, and he is no longer the eleven year old who clung to your cape and screamed like a banshee at the mere prospect of _going to school_." His tone was _intensely_ mocking; Vader felt ire rise on Luke's behalf.

Luke— Was he threatening—

"He is an _adult_, and if he is not ready then he needs to be ready, because time waits for no one. I did not only allow you to remain here so you could hunt Angel, Vader. You must make sure your son sees _sense_, and takes his rightful place with us. _I have no wish_ to see his potential squandered."

He sighed. "And I have no wish to see him led astray, either. I _had_ thought you would be able to deal with that yourself, Lord Vader. But I suppose I will have to take matters into my own hands; you are clearly too soft and weak where the boy is concerned. Even now, he takes advantage of it."

Vader had been in the middle of turning away.

But now he froze.

_I will have to take matters into my own hands._

"What?"

Palpatine moved his golden gaze from the city, now dark and grey, to Vader. _There_, in his irises, were the sparks he spoke so fervently of as he said, "Oh?"

_Oh_ what?

Palpatine couldn't hear the words, but he must know what he was thinking anyway, because he cackled. Loud and gleeful.

He said, "You did not know that as we speak your son is in the Senate gardens, meeting with Organa?"

* * *

The flight to the Senate was uncomfortable with his injured shoulder still smarting and Luke was glad when he finally arrived. He could sense Leia already inside, pacing, and his thousands of questions crowded his mind, his tongue, until for a moment he could barely think.

_Did you know about the attack today?_

_Do you know how many casualties there were?_

_Do you know what this will do?_

He tried to disguise his urgency as he strode in but his footsteps were quick and clipped and Leia, pacing next to a large bush of purple blossoms native to Naboo, turned on him with fire in her eyes and excitement snapping in her voice.

They spoke at the same time.

"Did you know you were my brother?"

"Did you know about the attack today?"

Then they paused.

"I saw it on the news."

"Oh. That."

Leia's face lit up, and she closed the distance between them to jab a finger into him. "Ha! You _did_ know?"

He took an indignant step back, rubbing his chest. "I knew the man in the holocron was my father. It was pretty obvious. From what you said afterwards, I extrapolated and put the two together." He scowled. "How did _you_ find out?"

"My master told me the truth. She thought I'd be _sad_ about it."

"Well, that's the general thing people expect when you have Darth Vader as a father," Luke bit out. "And... you mean to say you're _not_?"

"I wasn't talking about Vader, nerfherder." She took another step forward and shoved him again. "I was talking about _you_. She was all apologetic, sorry you have to have an evil pseudo-Imperial prince for a brother, and"—she seized his hands—"I told her there was _no one I'd rather have_."

Luke stared at her for a moment, squeezing their clasped hands together.

Leia did, outstandingly, look like his—_their—_mother.

"Brother," he said quietly. "I'm your brother.

He grinned.

"And you're my sister."

She smiled broadly in response. "Yes."

He hugged her.

Bent down to pick her up slightly, hissing when it aggravated his shoulder, but murmured in her ear, "There's no one I'd rather have as my sister, either."

She hugged him just as tightly.

Then he let her down again. She frowned at his shoulder—the red patch slowly growing in the fabric of his pale blue shirt. "You're hurt?"

He shrugged. Then he stopped, because it hurt. "Attack."

"Ah, yes, I saw it on the news." Her lips pursed. "'Luke Skywalker, son of Darth Vader, saves the day at the Imperial Academy and shows the galaxy what the next generation of Imperial rulers are made of'— _ugh_. You'll act all heroic and let yourself be a symbol for the _Empire_, but not the Rebellion?"

"Heroic? I," Luke said, patiently, like he was speaking to a child, "was _shot_."

"_Clearly_. Were you being stupid and heroic?"

"I was just trying to stop anyone from getting hurt, and when I was getting treated in the medbay because, you know, _I was shot_, the Imperial news ran wild! I had nothing to do with it!"

Leia swallowed and frowned. "Alright, I'm sorry. I believe you." Then she added slyly, "But yes. You were being stupid and heroic."

Luke sighed. let himself smile. Tried to force himself to relax.

It had been... a stressful day.

"They're saying the attack was orchestrated by the Rebellion," he said quietly. "Did you know anything about it?"

She shook her head. "No," she muttered. "It must have been a splinter group—or even just a group of disillusioned cadets, desperately wanting to make a stand but just getting in over their heads."

His voice cracked. "People _died_."

Leia stayed quiet too. "I know, brother."

"I _felt them_."

She took his hand in hers and laced their fingers together. "I know."

"We need to—"

"I'll see if I can find out who did this," Leia promised. "I'll see— there must be _something_ I can do. This sort of action only brands the Rebellion as terrorists, when it's something we _don't_ do—it's closer to what the Empire would..."

They stared at each other, realisation dawning in synchrony.

"Do..." Luke was the first to try to voice it; he swallowed. "Do you think..."

Alarm screeched through the Force.

They sprang apart and Luke whipped his head around, that presence that drenched the gardens in cold intimately familiar to him. Leia had paled significantly, staring at the monstrous black form that she'd always hated, but never had to reconcile with...

With being her father.

"_Luke_," Vader boomed as he strode forwards, "why are you not at home?"

Leia, for all that she could stare Vader down on any other day of the year, flinched on _this_ day, and Luke instinctively stepped in front of her.

"Embee said I was free to leave," he said, placating. His hands hopped up to hover in midair in front of him. "My shoulder is healing, I'm too fired up right now to sleep, so I—"

"Did exactly what I told you not to do?"

_Leave through the back door,_ Luke said to Leia. _Now._

But she didn't, frozen in place and also perversely fascinated, for the first time in her life, in the interactions between her father and brother.

"You have a meeting with the _Emperor_ tomorrow morning. You need to be _fully healed_, and you need to be _ready_. And after today"—his massive hand wrapped around Luke's slender wrist and yanked him forwards—"you will _not_ be meeting with Rebel sympathisers as _friends_."

Luke tensed up. He could sense Leia behind him, confused, but he just lifted his chin and tried to pull his arm out of his father's grip.

He failed, but it was the thought that counted.

"We've talked about this already, and we came to an agreement," he said sharply, and— not _coldly_, but his voice was no longer placating. "Why are you changing your mind now?"

Vader froze. His grip constricted on Luke's wrist even tighter, but it didn't hurt. He was careful enough to make sure of that.

"The attack earlier—" Vader began.

"I dealt with it. I'm fine."

"You were _shot_."

"I'm _fine_." Luke couldn't fold his arms across his chest when one was caught in a tight grip, so he planted one on his hip and glared to make up for it. "What did the Emperor say to scare you so badly?"

Vader bodily _jerked_ back at that.

_Get out, Leia. I mean it_.

She went. Vader's helmet snapped up to track her progress, hand clenching, but Luke waved his fingers and drew his gaze back to him again.

Once Leia was gone, Luke said again, more softly, "What did he say?"

"Nothing I was not aware of before," Vader ground out. "He wishes to train you as a Sith. He wishes to install you as Imperial prince. I already knew that."

"But now it seems more immediate," Luke guessed. He ignored the pit that had opened in his stomach.

Vader growled, "Come home with me _now_, Luke. I am sorry I exploded in front of your friend, but in light of this recent attack I believe we should update our _agreement_."

Luke's shoulder tensed, but he narrowed his eyes at his father and saw that he would not budge. Not on this.

Not right now.

Vader said into his mind, _Palpatine in watching you both_.

Well.

That changed things.

"Alright then," he said quietly. "Lead the way."


	9. The Vision

Luke received his official summons from the Emperor the next day. On edge and—ever so slightly—trembling, he flew to the Palace after his father had shut himself in his office, probably to trawl through the very little data he had on Angel.

At least, Luke _hoped_ he had very little data.

That would be... problematic, otherwise.

His hands were slick on the controls by the time he'd arrived at the Palace; he tried to surreptitiously wipe them off on his trousers, smiling tightly at the red guard who had come to the landing pad to bring in. This was hardly the first time Palpatine had sent an _escort_ to let him into the Palace—in fact, that was even protocol for when the Emperor had summoned guests but was not holding court in his throne room. But still...

If Palpatine had clocked onto who he was...

...he didn't like having an armed, fiercely loyal and obedient red guard at his back.

The opulent corridors of the Imperial Palace passed by with a blur, though as always Luke took a moment to let his eyes linger on the portraits of the _dear friends and compatriots of the Empire_ that lined the south-west corridor. Padmé Amidala was sat next to some wrinkly old moff, unsmiling but with a soft gaze that made Luke feel instantly calmer when he passed under it.

His mother would have been proud of him.

He knew that. His father never missed an opportunity to tell him. He knew it like he knew his father, like he knew himself.

Like he knew Leia.

Leia was his—

_No, don't think about that here_.

A pair of double doors, emblazoned with the Imperial cog, taller than Luke's father and heavy enough that Luke would have needed the Force to open them alone, loomed before him. His escort stopped beside them, adopting their usual stiff-backed, alert position, and Luke glanced between them and the doors for a moment.

They were not automatic doors—Luke didn't think he'd ever been this deep into this wing of the Palace, but he could tell that. And when he put his hand up to the door to push, the silk-smooth feel of the grain, the deep, deep reddish-brown of the wood, made his brain tick.

So. Wood from one of the Wookiees' sacred trees on Kashyyyk, felled and pillaged to add to the facade of Imperial might.

Luke fought to keep his disgust off his face and _pushed_.

The door didn't budge. But after a moment, he felt the temperature plunge and it swung inwards of its own accord—and Luke walked inside accordingly, trying to feel larger than a tatoo-rat.

The room itself was very pleasant. A sitting room, of sorts, with the assorted two sofas and one armchair in the middle of the room. A floor to ceiling window dominated two walls, wrapping around the corner, with a spectacular view of the Coruscanti starscrapers and airlanes. Every so often a TIE on patrol would zip past, like beads on a string—like planets in adoring orbit of their star.

The carpet was thick, and soft, the colour of Naboo's emerald vineyards—the last colour, ironically enough, Luke would have expected Palpatine to favour. The man himself was standing by the corner, staring out at his Empire.

"Ah, young Skywalker." He turned at the sound of Luke, unclasping his hands from his back. He had eschewed his usual black bathrobes for a finer, burgundy and purple robe that looked vaguely like something Luke had seen a holo of him wearing as Chancellor. Luke, for all that he knew he looked perfectly neat and respectable in his simple shirt and jacket in various shades of dark red and blue, dark trousers tucked into dark boots, felt extremely underdressed.

Palpatine smiled, and Luke hoped he thought that was the only reason he felt uneasy.

He took a few steps towards the little island of sofas in the middle of the room and, unnervingly quickly, had settled onto one of them.

"Sit, sit." He patted the sofa next to him, gnarled hand gentle but firm. "Come, my boy, I don't bite."

Luke highly doubted that.

But he sat.

"Now," he folded his hands in his lap, "I'm sure you've been wondering why I called you here."

Luke did not reply, but he leaned forward slightly—_ever so_ slightly. He didn't want to be too close to him if he could help it.

"I am aware there has been a certain... distance, between us lately. I can only assume you were too tired or busy to reply, or that my attempts to make contact were lost somewhere along the line."

Luke still said nothing.

Palpatine sighed. "I need a favour from you, my boy."

Luke, intrigued despite every gram of sense in him screaming at him not to be, asked, "What is it?"

But still, Palpatine was not forthcoming. He watched him for a moment longer. "You remind me so much of your mother, you know? Her spirit, her intelligence, her fidelity. She would be so proud of you."

Luke... suddenly wanted to cry.

He forced himself to swallow. "Thank you, Excellency." He still had no idea what the right title to use was.

"And I hear you court the same friends as she did—you know, she was close friends with Senator Organa's father too? Though I do wonder," he sighed, "what she would think of him if she suspected what I do..."

And once again, Luke said nothing.

"You are a shining jewel," Palpatine told him, lifting a hand and placing it on his shoulder. "You glow in the Force like a sun; you have power, dear boy, that I do not."

Well, Luke thought. If he was admitting that out loud, he needed something badly.

"A great change is coming," the Emperor continued. "I can sense that much, but I can sense no more. This... _Angel_ clouds my sight."

Luke's heart began to pound.

Palpatine smiled, and patted him on the knee. "But, perhaps that is not unusual. It is for the young to see, it is for the old to understand. I need you to cast out your senses and look into the future _for_ me; when you tell me what you see, I will tell you what it means."

Luke doubted he'd ever want _Palpatine's_ take on events.

But, he was here. He could refuse, but so far the Emperor had been civil—_surprisingly_ civil, considering Luke's months of stony silence—and he didn't want to know what would happen should that mask of civility fall, and expose the monster beneath.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Luke said at last, playing with the safe title, watching that ancient face with wary eyes. They were almost crinkled shut with his unfaltering smile.

Then Luke shut his eyes.

The Force crackled always at the back of his mind, and it was second nature to reach for it like a flower towards the sun. The moment he dipped his fingers into that current and felt everything crystallise around him, like sunlight had branded the world in neat, sharp lines, it was impossible to miss Palpatine's minute gasp.

Greed, possessiveness, leaked from his shields like oil, both reflecting the metaphysical sunlight in a thousand shines of iridescence and gobbling it up. Luke couldn't hold back a shiver, and the light shivered with him, trailing around his limbs like cobwebs rather than venture near the black hole.

"So much power..." Palpatine whispered, almost to himself. "It begs to be trained..."

The sooner he finished, the sooner he could leave. Luke breathed, and intentionally reached forwards, searching for... he didn't know what. He was stumbling through marble corridors of light and if he tried to see, he was lost.

Then he saw.

Flashes, only. A storm-lashed day on Coruscant but the sun shining through it in the gleaming flicker of rainbow light. The corridors of the Imperial Palace, the windows thrown open and banners in red, gold and blue fluttering in the confetti of rain. People bustled in and out, congregating as always around the bloody, beating heart of the Palace: the throne room, kept dim and dreary, except—

It wasn't.

The windows were open here, too. Light washed in, a cleansing fluid, and, sitting on the throne in robes of white, gold and pale blue...

Luke's eyes flew open. He didn't realise he was panting, heart racing, palms damp, until he tried to suck in a breath.

"What is it?" Palpatine urged. He laid a hand on Luke's pale cheek; Luke shied away, but he followed the motion until Luke was forced to accept it. "What is it, child, tell me."

Disturbed and off-guard, Luke had half a second to pull together a lie capable of withstanding Palpatine's interrogative gaze, or tell the truth.

Luke was not a liar.

"I saw... myself," he said, gaze shifting to the (as always) dim windows. Something flickered past the transparisteel; a bird, or maybe a holocam droid. Or perhaps it was nothing at all, just the darkness creeping in for his consciousness. "As..."

If he said _Emperor_, he was dead. Palpatine would brook no opposition, or maybe even take that as evidence that his father was mounting a coup against him (not that Luke had never debated trying to convince him to). It would make Palpatine feel threatened, which _would_ threaten _everything_.

So he said, "I saw myself as your chosen successor." It wasn't a lie, it rang true—and it was vague enough to give Palpatine... _hope_.

Luke turned a calculatedly pleading gaze up at him. "What does it mean, Your Majesty?"

Palpatine ignored his question.

"Tell me, child," he asked instead, leaning in until his face was uncomfortably close to Luke's, "what colour were your eyes?"

_Oh._

_Oh no._

Teachings of the Sith were hidden, esoteric. As far as Palpatine knew, Luke had not been privy to any of them.

So he just feigned confusion. "My eyes are blue, Your Majesty."

"Yes," the word was a hiss, "but what colour _were_ they? In the vision?"

He said, shakily but without lying, "I— I didn't think to focus on that, I assume they were blue—"

"Are you _sure_?"

And Luke saw his chance.

"No, sir." He shook his head. "All I saw of myself in the vision was a blur of white," _and blue_, "and gold."

_Gold_.

Palpatine sat back, satisfied, curling his lips around the soundless word.

Luke tried his question again: "Your Majesty? What does it mean?"

Palpatine resurfaced from his musings, a smile that peeled the skin away from all his yellowing teeth fixed on Luke. His hand returned to Luke's shoulder, even as he rose, and Luke—out of years of obligatory etiquette education— automatically rose with him. He felt much smaller when even the hunched-over Emperor managed to stand taller than him.

"Have no fear, young Skywalker," he soothed. It was not soothing. "It bodes only well. It tells us that your destiny approaches for you, a righting of all disgraces, and you will walk your path with all the dignity and promise you have."

Luke, again, tried not to shudder. He failed.

He hoped Palpatine took it as excitement.

"Now, that is all I have use of you for," his Emperor dismissed him. "But I have enjoyed our little discussion; I hope to call on you again soon, so we can end this months-long silence. It has been terrible."

Luke gritted his teeth.

"And I have one more, tiny request of you, Luke."

For some reason, seeing the Emperor's lips wrap around his name like that, hearing the familiarity in his tone, was the worst part of this entire ordeal.

"You can do away with all these petty titles of _Majesty_ and _Excellency_ and _sir_," he said, laying a hand on his breast. "I only wish for you to call me _master_, as recognition of the special relationship I hope we can cultivate—that I know we will _have_ to cultivate, for the glory of your vision to come true."

Luke nodded respectfully, and bowed. "Yes, Y—"

"Uh, uh."

Head still down, Luke grimaced and corrected himself.

"Yes, master."

* * *

Luke's shuttle landing in the hangar of the _Executor_ was met with the most unlikely—and honourable—of escorts. He frowned down at the man through the viewports of the cockpit and jogged down the ramp, concerned. He didn't even have any troopers with him.

"Captain Piett," he greeted, automatically giving a perfect salute and smiling to himself as Piett's eyes blew open in shock. Piett flapped his hands awkwardly until he put it away. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Oh, I heard you submitting your personal code and thought I'd take the chance to... speak to you myself, sir," he said, glancing around somewhat shiftily.

"Don't call me sir. You've known me since I used the bridge to play hide and seek as a kid. _Please_ don't call me sir."

Piett's inscrutable face cracked a smile. "Then don't address me as _Captain Piett_, Luke," he shot back in that droll tone Luke instinctively smiled at. "And _don't_ salute."

"I must've learned _something_ in all those years away," Luke teased.

"You're a clever boy, I have no doubt you did. But there's no need to make me feel old."

"Alright, Piett," he acquiesced, and they started walking out of the hangar to where Luke knew his father's offices were. "Why did you come to meet me?"

"I just wanted to ask if you were alright."

Luke shot him a look, just as they passed an ensign who _stared_ at the teenage boy walking comfortably in line with the captain, not half a step behind. "Why wouldn't I be alright...?" Piett knew him too well—had he heard about Angel? Did he suspect—

"Your father is in a fury. He has been on edge all day, and informed me personally that the moment you arrived I was to have you escorted straight to him so you could... _debrief_."

Luke snorted. "He's so dramatic."

"I would not recommend saying that to his face right now."

"Someone has to." They stepped into an open turbolift; after a moment, the doors slid shut with a _ding!_

"Nevertheless, he is in one of those states that I haven't seen since Gatalenta." Luke winced at the memory of what he happened _there_. "I thought something must have happened to you."

Luke winced further at the... concern there. Concern for him, but also for himself—and his crew.

"How many were sent to the medbay?" Luke asked quietly.

"Only two, but please answer—"

"How many _died_?"

Piett sighed. "Four," he muttered. "Please, just tell me what happened."

Luke shrugged. It aggravated his not-quite-completely-healed shoulder. "I assume you heard about the attack on the on-planet academy? I was there. I got shot. Father's been tearing himself apart trying to find who did it."

Piett's eyes blew wide. "You were _shot_!?"

"It's not bad, the medical droid cleared me."

"No _wonder_ he's so anxious." He bounced on the balls of his feet—a nervous gesture very, very rarely seen on someone with such ironclad composure.

Luke cringed just at the thought of what had driven him to that extreme.

"I'll speak to him about this," he promised. "I... didn't realise it got so bad, when—" He cut himself off.

Actually, he had known that.

Guilt scorched in his chest.

Piett gave another droll smile at the look on his face. "You've saved a lot more lives than you've ended, Luke," he said, putting a hand on his shoulder. His sleeve slipped down as he did; Luke's eyes found the little pink bracelet looped around his wrist, cluttered with mismatching yellow, green and magenta beads.

Piett followed his gaze. "These have saved a lot of lives as well," he said. "No one you've given a bracelet to has ever come to harm; Lord Vader won't touch them."

"It shouldn't be like that," Luke muttered. It... really wasn't great that the Empire allowed his father to get away with that. _Friendship bracelets_ made by a _nine year old_ should not be the only thing that stopped him.

Piett just grimaced, and didn't reply.

The turbolift came to a stop, and Luke automatically made to get out, only for Piett's hand on his shoulder to stop him. He glanced at the floor: they weren't there yet.

Someone else got in instead: a tall, dark-haired man who looked oddly familiar. He smiled at Piett and, after a moment of well-masked confusion, nodded at Luke respectfully.

"Hello, Firmus," he said. Piett hummed a greeting in reply. "And you must be Lord Vader's son; it's an honour to meet you."

"Likewise, sir," Luke smiled winningly in return. "Am I correct that you're General Veers?"

He looked momentarily taken aback, but accepted Luke's hand when offered and nodded. "I am."

He was too polite or tight-lipped to ask _how_ Luke knew, but Luke supplied it anyway: "I'm good friends with your son. You look a lot like him."

Something in Veers's posture relaxed, and he regarded Luke with something else in his gaze.

"Are you?" he said. "Have you noticed anything off about him recently?"

From what Luke had heard about the relationship between Zev and his father, he doubted there was enough consistency or total goodwill for anything to ever _not_ be _off_, but Luke just took the question as the genuine paternal concern it was, and frowned.

"No," he said. Then he considered his stiff behaviour at the open day a bit more and said, "Yes, actually. Something minor, but a tiny bit off."

"Was this because he may have happened to witness you getting _shot_?" Piett asked dryly.

Luke laughed, as he was meant to. "Possibly." Except it had been _before_ that, hadn't it? "I couldn't place why he seemed that way though, I'd have to talk to him more about that."

"If you can, do." Veers pinched his lips. "I don't have much time for him."

The words were cold. Luke winced at how they sounded.

But the fact he'd said them at all, to a complete stranger who still had a better relationship with his son than he did, said so much.

And Luke had to wonder how much Zev actually knew about his father's love for him, or if this poor communication just hurt him more.

"I—" Luke began to say, then the turbolift reached his floor. "I have to go."

"I assume you can find your own way from here, Luke?" Piett glanced at him. "I should be getting back to the bridge."

"I can make my own way from here, yes." Luke stepped out, and turned away, towards the dark sun that had already turned its orbit towards him. "My father's expecting me."

* * *

For a moment after Luke left, there was silence in the turbolift. Then Max remarked, "So that's Lord Vader's son, eh?"

Piett smiled. "Yes. That's Luke."

"You know, despite all your stories, I expected him to be more..."

"Like his father?"

Max exhaled a breath. "Yes."

"Understandable," Piett admitted, "but Luke's nothing like Lord Vader. He's a veritable angel."

Max raised an eyebrow. "I'm surprised he's friends with Zev and I haven't heard about it."

"Luke's friends with everyone." Piett shrugged. "It's in his nature. And if anyone can calm Lord Vader when he's enraged... he can."

* * *

"I hear," Luke said by way of greeting, striding clean into his father's meditation room and planting his hands on his hips, "that you have killed four people today."

"Spare me your bleeding heart and talk about something important," his father snapped. His hyperbaric chamber was open around him, like an oddly cracked egg, and his helmeted head stood out like a drop of ink against the white. "What did Palpatine want?"

"You have to come up with better ways of managing your anger, that don't involve murder."

"I am a _Sith_, and this is irrelevant."

"Those people had family, parents—imagine how you would feel if you got a message saying _I_ had died just because my commanding officer was in a bad mood—"

"_Enough_." Vader stood from his seat to stride over, until he was close enough that it hurt Luke's neck, craning his head back to look him in the eye. "Answer my question."

"Resorting to intimidation, huh? That hasn't worked on me in six years."

They glared for a few minutes longer, then Vader sagged. Did not relax, remained stiff, but... loomed less.

"I did not ask you here to argue," he said tightly, and gestured Luke through to the next room, his office, where there was a scrappy sofa for Luke to sit on. Luke did, running his fingers over the Loth-wolf and shaak shaped cushions he'd insisted on having when he was little. "And nor did _you_ come here to argue, I suspect. There is nothing more to be discussed in this subject, so I suggest we move on."

"There is _everything_ in this subject to be discussed," Luke shot back. "And we _will _be covering it this evening—"

"We will not. I have work to do, and cannot return home tonight. I will see you tomorrow instead."

"—but I concede the point. Continue." Luke folded his arms across his chest and tried to ignore what he'd just learned; his heart raced. If his father wasn't _on_ planet tonight, tonight was the perfect time to...

"Rather, _you_ continue," Vader pointed out, seating himself at the desk. "What did Palpatine want?"

Luke grimaced. "He wanted me to look into the future for him," he said. "Apparently this whole... _Angel_ business is clouding his sight, and he wanted me to use my _shining jewel powers_ to look for him."

"And what did you see?" his father asked, wisely ignoring the strange imagery. Luke wasn't sure he understood it himself.

He swallowed. "I saw..."

He trailed off. His father tilted his head from behind the desk, and Luke could _feel_ his raised eyebrow.

"I saw a day of sun and rain, with the Imperial Palace well lit for... some sort of ceremony. A celebration. A festival. Or a coronation." He worked his jaw. "And I saw myself on the throne."

He sensed nothing from his father for a moment.

Then he sensed _triumph_.

Luke lifted his chin. "Father? What does it mean?"

"I have no great skill with foresight, little one," Vader said immediately, though his confident tone belied his words, "but I have hope for this case. I believe you will be Emperor."

Luke froze.

It had been nagging at the back of his mind from the moment he saw it, especially with all those crimson banners fluttering, but...

To hear his father _confirm it..._

"I don't want to be Emperor," he whispered.

His father tilted his head. "What."

"I don't want to be Emperor," he said, a little louder. "He— Palpatine—"

"I am well aware you are not a fan of the current Emperor, son, but that is just a reason to be more excited about one day replacing him."

"It's a _terrible_ job! I'd have to deal with politicians all day!"

His father couldn't find an argument to that.

"It would've been the perfect job for your mother," he told him instead, "and it will be the perfect job for you."

"I am _not_ my mother!"

"But you are far more like her than you think, son," he pushed. "You are charming, you are likeable, and you are capable. You fight for justice just as fiercely as she did, and I would trust no one else with so much power." He added softly: "Not even myself."

And Luke was floored.

He stared at his father, tears clouding his sight until it was as though he were peering through bacta. He said, "You trust me that much?"

"Of course I trust you, Luke," his father replied instantly. "You are my son, and you are the greatest son I could ask for, even when nagging me about how I treat my subordinates. No one else is as capable, or as loyal, as you."

Luke blinked. One of those tears caught on the edge of his eyelid and tipped over down his cheek; he went to wipe it away.

The Force only corroborated his father's words. A part of him wanted to bask in it, revel in it: his father loved him. His father was so, so proud of him.

And Luke was a traitor.

Luke was not loyal.

Luke was the criminal his father hated and hunted so passionately.

Fresh tears flood his eyes, and he bowed his head, hoping he mistook them for overwhelming joy.

"Thank you, Father," he said. "I... don't know how the future will get there, if it gets there at all, but I will endeavour to make you proud."

His father rose, to come closer and put a hand on his shoulder. Tilted his head up to face him.

"Luke," he intoned. "You already have."

* * *

Han hadn't come back to Nar Shaddaa in months—not since the kid had enlisted him in his treason, and paid him _handsomely_ for it. But business was slow on that front at the moment—apparently Luke had become a whole lot busier in the past week—so he figured he had the time to make a quick trip to the Smuggler's Moon, meet some old contacts.

This was not one of the old contact he'd been betting on meeting, however.

"Sana," he said, doing his best to smile winningly when, actually, his heart had just started vibrating more violently than the _Falcon_ during the Kessel Run at the sheer power of the _glare_ she shot him. "What a surprise! Great to see you again."

Next to him, Chewie scoffed and barely restrained from turning away from the conversation that was already going south.

Sana didn't return his smile. She just shoved through the other patrons of the crowded cantina with her finger curled round the trigger of a big black blaster, and threw herself down opposite him at his table. Chewie made a nervous sound and she grinned at him, showing perhaps more teeth than necessary.

Then the smile dropped faster than Han's hand had to his blaster, and she rested her own blaster at the edge of the table in response. He was sure it was just _coincidence_ that the barrel was pointed _directly at him_.

"Likewise," she said. "You're going to make me rich."

"I am?" Chewie kicked him. "That is, I mean I _can_. If you wanna partner up with me, but I warn ya..."

"You," Sana informed him, "have a bounty on your head."

"_What_?"

She reached down, without her right hand so much as twitching away from her blaster, and tossed a bounty puck onto the table with her left. It flickered and spat out a blue image of his face, and another one of Chewie's, both with matching numbers stamped along the bottom.

"_Ten thousand credits_?" He swallowed and tried to stay cool. "For _me_? Didn't think I was that important to..."

"Jabba's a bit _annoyed_ you dropped that shipment and never paid him back."

"I'm _paying_ him back!" He leaned forwards. "I've got a job, a long one, very dangerous, but it pays _really well_. He's gotta understand that. The time he gave me ain't up yet."

"You negotiated more time then vanished off the face of the galaxy. He thinks you did a runner, and he's tired of waiting." She cocked her blaster higher. "And I'm tired of waiting for the money you owe _me_ as well."

"The money— ah." He tried smiling again. "Now, that was all a big misunderstanding—"

"I pretended to _marry you_ for a con, and you _ran off with my cut_."

"You're still bitter about that?"

She glared. He winced.

"Give me my cut now," she said, "with interest, and I will walk away without selling your location to any bounty hunters."

"Now then, Sana—"

"What's it gonna be, Solo?" Her fingers tightened on the trigger.

"I don't have the money _with me_ right now," he said. "As you said, I gotta repay Jabba. _But..._"

"But?"

He tried the smile one last time. "I have a job. It's paying real well. You just gotta trust me, and I will get back to you in two standard months, with all your money."

"_Trust you_?" She snorted. "No thanks, Solo."

"Yeah, I wouldn't've taken that option either," he agreed. His fingers constricted around his blaster. "But I have a better way of settling this—"

A moment later, the cantina erupted with sparks and Tibanna gas and screams.


	10. The Concern

Leia ducked. The lightsaber shifted in her slick palms and she gripped it tightly to compensate, staggering a little when the next blow came. She _pushed_ back, teeth gritted, the blade sizzling the ends of the hair that that escaped her simple training plait—

And Ahsoka hooked a foot behind her knee and she went sprawling.

She collided hard with the mountain grass, blinking up at a blue, blue sky. There was no breath in her lungs but she yelped anyway when Ahsoka summoned her second lightsaber back to hand and hooked it to her belt.

"That was faster than usual," she noted, turning away. The mountain range surrounding Aldera afforded beautiful views and she peered down at the city now, allowing Leia the grace and dignity to get up without scrutiny.

Leia scowled at her back. "Yeah, well, I'm tired."

Ahsoka flipped her first lightsaber in her hand, careful not to touch the activation button when she caught it. "You've been tired all morning."

"I didn't sleep well."

"May I ask why?"

Leia pinched her lips together.

"A dream," she admitted. "I think— I think Luke was under stress."

Ahsoka shrugged. "That makes sense. You're twins—there was a pair of twin Jedi during the Clone Wars, and they shared emotions, dreams, experiences often."

Leia frowned, though, so Ahsoka pushed, "Do you think it was a vision?"

Leia tilted her head and thought about it, automatically pulling her legs into the crossed position she used while meditating.

"...yes," she said cautiously. She knew not to take visions too literally, but that that didn't mean she shouldn't act on them at all. "It was a sunny-rainy day on Coruscant, the Imperial Palace was bedecked in coronation colours, and..."

"And?" Ahsoka prompted.

Leia flattened her lips and said, "And Luke was Emperor."

Ahsoka was silent for a moment, before she turned away from the view of Aldera to look at Leia. "I see. Was he... Sith?"

"_No_!" Leia snapped immediately—she knew Ahsoka was still worried about Luke, and his darkness, Angel or not, but— "_No_, never."

"You said that he told you Palpatine was intent on training him, didn't he?"

"He _did_ but— ugh. Luke's _resisting_ that, he won't ever turn to the Sith. I know that." She met Ahsoka's gaze fiercely. "I've been teaching him what I can about the Force, but he said that there's a deal between Vader and Palpatine that Luke won't be trained _until he's ready_, whatever that means, which Luke thinks is just his father's way of keeping him _away_ from the Emperor. He's never had any interest in becoming a Sith." She shook her head. "He won't let himself become one—he'll blow his cover and publicly join the Rebellion first."

Ahsoka let out a breath. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure. I trust him with my life."

"You trust him with a lot more than that, every time you meet up." She smiled. "Maybe I'm not the person to talk to about this. You have another Senate session to attend to tomorrow—you should ask him yourself when you're back on Coruscant."

Leia nodded. "I will." she decided.

Ahsoka smiled a little, then. "I can't deny that he's done a lot for us," she admitted. "The Tarkin initiative chip alone has already provided us with invaluable codes—there's been _so many_ successful attacks on those bases—and he's armed us, he's funded us... I should trust him more."

"You should meet him," Leia shot back with a smile. "You won't have any doubts then."

Ahsoka smiled.

"Maybe," she said. "I'd like that."

* * *

Luke had taken every advantage of the fact that his father wasn't on-planet that night. He'd hit three places: Moff Ghadi's prized house of collections, full of the riches he'd pillaged from hundreds of planets, which were easy pickings for any Force-user who so much as set their mind to it; Imperial Military Headquarters themselves, to steal, copy and replace datachips and datapads' worth of information on fleet movements and codes; and then he'd hit IMH's kitchens, because by early morning he was starving.

And if he was taking on too many challenges in one night, been chased down by too many security guards and fallen far too many levels to be good for him... it was a decent stress relief.

He didn't want to think about that vision.

When he finally rolled into bed, the beginnings of sunrise starting to creep through his blinds, he slept until noon.

He could've slept longer, but noon was when his father returned to poke his head in his room and demand why he wasn't up yet. Being woken by a booming voice right above his head _was not_ fun.

Luke was just fleetingly grateful that he'd had the presence of mind to store his stolen goods in one of his many hidey-holes around the city before he came home to crash. If his father had seen them...

Well.

That'd be an awkward conversation.

It was still long past noon by the time he was lucid and ready to do something with his day, but Luke had made a promise to Veers and he intended to keep it, as soon as possible.

Zev lived about a half hour's speeder journey away from Luke, a few levels down, so it wasn't too long before Luke was settling his own speeder down on the landing pad outside and jogging up to the door to jab the bell, fidgeting as he did, glancing around.

Zev opened the door pretty quickly, a datapad held loose in his hand. Luke smiled.

"You look terrible," Zev said.

Luke scowled. "Hello to you too."

"Come in, by all means, Luke," Zev said, stepping back from the door, "but _seriously_. How much did you sleep?"

Luke grimaced.

"I tossed and turned for a long time," was all he said, which... was true. Even after he'd slapped on some bacta patches, even after the exhaustion that had been last night, he still hadn't been able to sleep for all the thoughts crowding his head.

"You alright?" Zev asked knowingly.

Luke ignored him. "I came here to ask _you_ that question," he said baldly. "Not that I'm not thrilled to be visiting anyway, I would've dropped by soon anyway, but I went to see my father on the _Executor_ yesterday, and I ran into yours."

Zev's face instantly shuttered. "I see."

"He said that you seem distant or... preoccupied, recently," Luke pushed.

"_I'm_ the distant and preoccupied one?"

"Apparently. He asked if I would check up on you."

"Instead of doing it himself?"

Luke's shoulder sagged. "Yes," he said, reaching out to squeeze Zev's arm. Zev sighed and led him into the living room, where they took a seat on the sofa in front of the window. "But I wanted to see if you were alright."

"I'm fine!" Zev said, leaning back against the cushions. Luke raised his eyebrows; Zev wasn't meeting his eyes.

"Are you sure?"

"Luke, you're the one who didn't seem to sleep at all last night and on closer inspection looks like he got run over by a speeder-bus."

"Yes, and you're the one who's avoiding the question."

Zev sighed. "You're right."

Luke leaned in to listen better, taking his friend's hand.

"I..." Zev closed his eyes. "I've spent so much time studying and training to be a soldier. To join the Imperial Army like my dad and be _good_, and serve the Empire, and..."

Luke said nothing; just waited for him to finish speaking.

"I don't want to join up anymore," he said simply. "It's... I've lost my passion for it, and walking around the Academy grounds with you the other day was so _awkward_ because I was trying to be enthusiastic about it for you, but—"

"Zev, I didn't want to be there either. Trust me. Getting shot was the most interesting part of that experience."

Zev laughed. "Alright, I feel a lot better then. But... I just don't want to go to a military academy. I don't want to keep killing inn—" He cut himself off.

Luke's spirits sank and soared simultaneously.

He said, "You don't want to keep killing innocent civilians."

Zev jerked his head up, but when he found only a calm understanding in Luke's gaze he let out a shaky breath, smiling.

"Yes," he said. "I— I know the Empire is good, I know the Emperor's purpose is grand—" The lie screeched in the Force.

"I've met the Emperor," Luke said baldly. "His only purpose is sadism."

Zev's eyebrows shot right up. "Are you allowed to say that?"

"Absolutely not, please don't repeat it." He trusted Zev not to—Zev had met Leia, even if they hadn't got along brilliantly, and had kept his discretion—but it was best to make that clear. "But... I understand what you mean, about being disillusioned with where the Empire goes, sometimes."

Zev lifted his chin to look at him then, eyes narrowed.

"Luke," he said, "your father's the Emperor's heir apparent, isn't he?"

Luke's vision came barrelling back to him.

He swallowed.

"I suppose," he said. "But I don't have any say over what's happening, if that's what you're asking. I don't—"

"No," Zev said. "That's not what I'm asking. Luke..."

Luke clapped him on the shoulder so suddenly they both started.

"Well, I guess if you don't wanna go into the military you can always become a politician!" he said, faux-cheerily. "Then if there's anything you're unhappy about, you can complain about it until some grumpy bureaucrats finally get around to fixing it."

Zev grimaced. "You think _I_ wanna be a _politician_?"

"Good point." He just grinned. "We'll find some other way to change the galaxy, then."

Zev caught his gaze and his hand in his and smiled, some tension easing out of his shoulders. "You and me, Luke," he said. "We'll do it."

And for a moment, Luke wanted to tell Zev everything.

_Everything_.

The secret he couldn't tell his father. The situation he couldn't tell Han. The stress he couldn't tell Leia.

He could tell Zev.

Except he couldn't.

He wouldn't put that pressure on him. And... he couldn't risk it.

So he just smiled.

"You bet we will."

* * *

The sun was already starting to sink by the time he left Zev's, so he didn't bother returning home before going to see Han—just headed straight for the hidey hole he'd dumped his stolen goods in the previous night and headed straight for the tooka shelter.

They hissed when they saw him. He tossed them a few treats and watched them scamper.

His comm buzzed with an incoming message from Leia—she wanted to meet as soon as possible, to discuss... something. She wasn't specific, but Luke had the looming feeling that he wouldn't like it.

When Han arrived, Luke was already on edge. Seeing those injuries made it _worse_.

"What happened to you!?"

Chewie roared something. Luke frowned; his Shyriiwook wasn't brilliant, but—

"You're one to talk, kid, you look like shavit yourself."

"You got into a _firefight_ on _Nar Shaddaa_?" He whistled. "I'm surprised you're still alive."

"I resent that, kid, I'm plenty good at staying alive."

Luke and Chewie exchanged a knowing glance. "What happened, Chewie?"

He rolled his eyes at the response he got. "An old partner you swindled came looking for retribution?"

"Hey, it was an honest scam—"

Luke stared. Han stopped talking, but didn't backtrack.

"You gotta give me a bigger cut than this, Luke," Han pushed. "I got a price on my head now, old debts I gotta pay off—you're paying me well, but not well enough to save my neck."

Luke studied a fresh pink scar along his cheek. "Nor your handsome face, it seems."

Han glared.

Luke grinned. "Here," he said, passing over the bag. "The datachips, you give to the Rebellion. Doubt you'll have any need for those. But some of the trinkets..."

Han frowned into the bag. "Rob another museum?"

"Yeah. Some should go back to their planets and peoples of origin, but others..." He swallowed. "Others are from cultures that have been wiped out." Ancient cultures, long dead cultures studied by archaeologists... or cultures the Empire had destroyed. "I figured you'd be able to tell which ones were which?"

"Do I look like an anthropologist, kid?" Han dragged out a small statue of what looked like a dianoga, carved with unsettling detail in enamel and gold. He stared at it for a moment, as if he wanted to bite it and see if it was real like the people in the holodramas did.

Luke smiled a little, at that. "I was talking to Chewie."

Chewie sniggered.

"You hit a lot of places last night," Han commented, still rifling through. He'd dumped the statue back in—Luke winced; he was no expert, but if Han wanted to sell these somewhere he figured they ought to be in decent shape—and now was viewing a bracelet built for a species with much thinner limbs than most humans. "You alright?"

Luke blinked. "Well, no, I fell three levels." And his bruised body would _not_ let him forget it. "But I'm fine. I'll live, and I've got all the treatment I need."

"No, I mean..." Han huffed to himself, tossing the bracelet back into the bag. "You— you work best when you're stressed."

Luke tilted his head.

Chewie laughed, and growled something more. Luke frowned when he understood.

"I push myself more when I'm stressed or upset?" He scratched the back of his neck, avoiding their eyes. "What makes you say that?"

"A year of working with ya, kid."

Luke snorted. "Well, okay. Maybe I do. I just... had a weird day, yesterday, and went to rob IMH instead of trying to sleep when I was too distracted."

Chewie asked if he'd managed to sleep well at all, even then.

"...no."

"You don't look like you did, definitely."

"_Thank you_, Han."

"No problem!"

Luke sighed, and pulled his hood up. "I hope that's enough to satisfy your debtors for now, Han. If I don't contact you with news of anything else by next week, contact me. I need to go."

"Kid." A hand on Luke's wrist stopped him, and he paused, looking up into his eyes. Han tried for a smile. "I dunno what's going on with you, and I know I don't know enough about you to understand..."

"Not because of you," Luke reminded him gently, "just because it's safer for both of us."

"Yeah, well, Leia _does_ know," he pointed out. "Make sure you talk to her, alright? And if you get sick of whatever situation you're in, need to get out and fly..."

Luke smiled. "Your offer's still open?"

"Yeah."

He slowly prised Han's grip off his wrist. "Thank you, Han. But I'm fine. It's... complicated."

"Uh huh. I'm sure." He stood back. "See you around, kid."

Luke nodded, and started up his speeder. "May the Force be with you," he said automatically.

He missed Han's confused frown as he sped away.

* * *

Chewie was right: he hadn't slept well at all. So when he got home, he crashed for two hours and didn't rise again until it was dinner and his father was pounding his fist against his door.

"_Luke_," he demanded. Luke just groaned and staggered out of bed, hair all a-muss. "Luke, I am concerned about you."

_Isn't everyone?_ Luke grumbled to himself.

"You slept in late."

"I'm a teenager." Luke rubbed at his eyes. "That's what we do."

"Luke..." Vader trailed off. Luke tilted his head up to meet his father's gaze behind the eye plates, frowning. "Come and eat dinner with me. Please."

Luke blinked.

He didn't think he'd ever heard his father say _please_ before.

"Alright," he said, pushing himself to his feet and trying—in vain—to smooth his hair down. "I'll be out in a second."

The cooking droids had made him a shaak steak that _smelled_ delicious, but that he could still only bring himself to pick at slowly. Their penthouse did have a dining room, but since Vader so rarely entertained guests it was only really used for when Luke had friends over, and when it was just the two of them it felt almost cavernous. Usually, his father's presence was more than enough to fill the space, but...

The silence was deafening.

"Father?" Luke asked finally. His father didn't eat, not in front of him—the suit didn't allow that—but he did like sitting with Luke as he ate. It was rare enough that they were on the same planet that they had to take whatever time together they could. "Did you have anything you wanted to talk to me about?"

After a few cycles of his respirator, Vader said, "Yes. I did." He leaned forwards; Luke felt trapped under his gaze, like a fly in amber. "There was another Angel attack last night."

It took _everything_ in him not to cringe and give himself away.

"Luke, I know you want your independence, and I trust you. If you claim you weren't podracing, then I believe you—at least you do not appear to be _injured_ this time."

Indeed. Thank the Force for bacta, the extra sleep, and also Luke's acting abilities. All the visible ones were healed, and now his shields were up tight; his father couldn't sense his pain.

"_As_ injured, at least." Those eye lenses seemed to peer right at him, taking in the faintest remnants of the scratches and bruises. "I assume you had _some_ trouble, whatever you were doing on the streets of Coruscant in the dead of night?"

Luke shrugged. "I ran into someone who tried to mug me. It's fine!" he added when he felt his father's ire spike. "I saw them off! They're probably lost to the underbelly by now."

"Good." His father bought the story without question, and Luke couldn't help a smidgen of relief.

Vader must have picked up on that, though, because he pointed a stern finger at him so forcefully that Luke choked on his steak.

"_However_," he boomed, "simply because you can somewhat handle yourself, does not mean you are _safe_."

"_Somewhat handle myself_?" Luke scoffed, chewing a vegetable in his mouth and making to remind him _exactly_ what had happened at the academy open day...

Then he looked at his father, and understood.

"You're worried about me—about Angel targeting me," he said quietly.

"You would make an extremely valuable hostage. If the Rebellion—"

"The Rebellion prides itself on being _moral_." Luke hoped his emphasis on the word sounded disgusted and not defensive. "I doubt they'd sink to kidnapping—Angel certainly hasn't kidnapped or assassinated anyone yet." And if Leia asked him to, they both knew that would be the end of this whole stunt.

"Kidnapping the son of Darth Vader?" His father didn't sound arrogant, or confident, or lecturing when he said that. He sounded _scared_. "You underestimate your value, my son, and you underestimate their hatred of me. I have no doubt that if they could take it out on you, they would."

"Father..."

Luke put down his fork, then, to put his hand on his father's. Vader clenched his fist underneath it.

"I can take care of myself, I promise. I can stay out of trouble."

"The way you did against that _mugger_?"

Luke sighed. "Father. I am _not_ going to get kidnapped, I promise you that."

"Would that I could believe that, son, but this _Angel_ has proven... skilled. I have raised the bounty on their head significantly for a reason." Luke swallowed tightly. "They successfully robbed the Palace. They successfully robbed IMH, then caused a commotion in the kitchens to cover their escape..."

Sure. That was why they'd done it.

"They... are not to be underestimated."

Luke retracted his hand. "Then I won't underestimate them. But I am one person out of a trillion on this planet, and I doubt they will come after me."

He held his gaze.

_They won't hurt me_, he promised over their bond.

Vader lifted a hand to his cheek, and Luke leaned into it, despite the sense that his father was not really looking at _him_ at all. "If I lost you..."

Luke chose not to answer that; just turned his face into the hand, and tried to blink away tears.

* * *

"So," a voice behind Han said, and Han _cursed every being in this blasted galaxy_, "_this_ is the great money-making job you were talking about?"

"How'd _you_ get here?" Han snapped, spinning round with his blaster up. He could hear Luke's speeder fading away in the distance. Sana grinned at him, and a karkarodon would've looked friendlier.

"It takes more than a _firefight_ to distract _me_, Han," she informed him. "You're not getting out of this that easily. I want my money."

"And I want the _Falcon_'s hyperdrive to stop fritzing, we can't have everything." He trained his sights on her, and knew Chewie's bowcaster was trained on her as well. Two on one, but with that gun of hers those were still decent odds to someone getting hurt.

But Sana just looked to where the kid and his speeder had disappeared into the airlanes.

"This seems to be very profitable for you," she mused.

"Not as much as I'd like, but y'know how it is, I have to take what I can get—"

"What could be even more profitable," she said, "is taking advantage of it."

Han frowned.

She raised her eyebrows. "That's that _infamous thief_, right? What's-his-name—_Angel_? There's a bounty on his head to rival yours."

Han snorted. "To rival _mine_? Ya said I had ten thousand credits, that _petty thief_ has—"

"Thirty thousand, as of yesterday." Sana pulled out a puck and lit the hologram. "And counting. Apparently Vader's taken over the investigation—he's increasingly eager to get his hands on your thief."

"_Vader_..." Han went cold. Luke... being caught by the death-giver people called _Darth Vader_... "What's he wanting the kid for?"

"Execution, imprisonment, torture, who knows? Maybe he even wants his skills for himself. But you could make a cushy credit by turning _him_ in. Enough to pay off your debt to Jabba, _and_ to me, in fact."

"I ain't gonna turn the kid in," Han said boldly.

Sana laughed. "Why? Has Han Solo gone soft? Thrown his lot in with the Rebel cause after all?"

"'Course not!" Han glanced at Chewie, who was watching him judgementally, then back to Sana. "But this kid's gonna make me _rich_. Look at this stuff—a few more weeks, and I'll have all the credits I need to pay off you both." He eyed Sana's blaster. "Unless you decide to shoot me first."

"I like credits more than I like killing. Though I do like them both a lot." She frowned at him. "Two weeks then, Han. For all we know, Vader will have become even more desperate, and offer even more for him. Did you know that this guy broke into the Palace and lived?"

No. He hadn't. But Han didn't let that show on his face.

She holstered her blaster. "Two weeks, Solo," she called over her shoulder. "I'm getting antsy, Jabba's getting antsy, but that's what you'll get. Then, if your little friend's not caught yet, and if you don't have our money..."

She hopped onto a speeder bike and shot him one last look.

"We'll all be outta options."


	11. The Palace

When Luke received the summons to breakfast with the Emperor the next morning, he really wished he could return to the time when he had just ignored every attempt at communication between them. It had made his life so much less complicated.

But his father was stubborn, and would not allow him to continue his rude—if sensible!—behaviour. So here he was, pushing some sort of mutilated egg around a delicate plate, desperately trying to ignore the yellow gaze boring a hole in his forehead.

"So tell me, Luke," Palpatine said warmly, dissecting his own mutilated eggs and placing them on his tongue. For a moment, it looked like he was frothing yellow at the mouth. "Have you decided anything about what you would like to do with your considerable talents? I know you were considering many futures"—he dabbed delicately at the corners of his lips with a serviette—"I don't suppose you'd indulge an old man's curiosity?"

Luke thought of every swear word he knew and tossed them out of his mind before the Emperor could read it. "Since the... _event_ at the Academy here," he said slowly, picking at those eggs. Finally he squished them onto his fork and lifted it to his lips, trying to ignore the smell. "I confess I... have got distracted—"

"That's perfectly understandable, my boy—especially in the wake of such a vicious attack. I hope you know that I and your father are doing everything we can to root out and punish the true culprits."

"That... is reassuring." It really wasn't. Luke took a sip of water and half-wished it was alcoholic. "But as I was saying, Your Majesty—"

"Master, child." He smiled, showing off all his rotting teeth. "Remember?"

"Right. Master." Luke took another drink of water. "As I was saying, after the event at the Academy, I have my doubts about attending there and staying on Coruscant. I'd prefer to go to Skystrike instead. Learn to be a pilot."

"A mere pilot?" Palpatine clucked his tongue. "Such a waste of your potential."

"My potential won't be worth anything without experience."

"You can _obtain_ experience, my boy, easily. Your father or I could easily pull some strings to place you in a command position immediately after—"

"Thank you, Your— master," Luke said, putting his utensils down on the plate. The _clink_ had an air of finality. "But I have spoken to my father about this—I want to succeed on my own merits, and while I greatly appreciate what you both are willing to do for me, I don't want to cut corners and advance when I have not earned it."

Palpatine froze at that, blinking oddly. He stared at Luke—for once, utterly lost for words.

It didn't last long. Soon enough, he said, "Have you considered training your... other potential? Your Force abilities, as I told you, are..." He took a deep breath, as if he was inhaling some scent, and Luke _did not_ like that glint in his eye. "...exquisite."

Luke didn't meet his gaze. "Thank you, master, but I'm sure my father told you that I am not yet ready to be trained."

"He told me that seven years ago."

"And he assures me that it holds true today." Luke smiled politely. "I am young, as you know—I can go to Skystrike, gain the experience I want, then when I return I can pursue the ways of the Force."

"The ways of the _Sith_," Palpatine said pointedly, narrowing his eyes.

"Yes, Master. I have my whole life ahead of me to dedicate to the Sith, and the Empire." He smiled sunnily. "I have a lot of time to learn."

"But I am old, and have little time to teach," Palpatine countered. His gaze drilled into Luke's. "And I would very much like to teach you, young Skywalker, before I die. You could be the greatest of my apprentices."

Luke's smile fell to something softer, more gracious. It was just as forced. "I could never outdo my father."

"You would be surprised, young one." Luke almost flinched at hearing his father's favoured term of affection come out of Palpatine's mouth. "And that is not an insult to Lord Vader—he would support it, I am sure. He has told me all about your talent and diligence."

Luke... doubted that.

"Surely, the best way you could utilise that talent is to stay here, on Coruscant, and learn to truly wield and respect the power you possess?"

Luke struggled with words for a few moments, but watching so many of his mother's speeches had helped him a lot. He finally managed to say: "That is very kind of you, master, and I am honoured by your flattery. But"—he saw Palpatine's eyes flash at that, with an anger that was well contained; he sensed barely an echo of it in the Force—"the longer I stay on Coruscant, the longer I feel that I have no purpose. There is no place for me here at the moment. Before I learn to wield my power, I would like to establish with myself what I would wield it _for_."

It... was true, he realised. Perhaps that was what convinced Palpatine.

Angel was a temporary measure. He did his best, but sometimes he really wondered what he was even _doing_, risking his life when nothing he seemed to do ever made a difference. It may have got Leia her holocron, and may have got Luke his sister, but it wasn't even paying off Han's debts—let alone helping the Rebellion in leaps and bounds.

Leia could talk at him about wars of erosion, about chipping away at Imperial morale and prestige and arrogance, all she wanted. She could talk about the 'true' stories of an angelic hero that Rebel propaganda wanted to circulate. But Luke was tired.

If he was as powerful as his father and Emperor seemed to think he was, he should be able to do more.

So maybe it was the truth ringing in his words as he spoke that made Palpatine... not _sit up and take notice_. He didn't sit up; he sat back, steepled his fingers, observed him over the structure of them.

"I'm sorry, Master," Luke said, bowing his head. "It— it may be difficult to understand, I'm not articulating this well—"

"Your eloquence and composure would make your mother proud, Luke," Palpatine said. Luke shivered. "I understand you completely."

Luke bowed his head even lower. "Thank you, Master," he said. He started to rise from his chair—Palpatine's raised eyebrow indicated that that wasn't _at all_ proper, but Luke hadn't been raised at court, he thought wryly. He'd been raised at an academy for thugs.

"Now, this has been lovely"—they both knew it was a lie; neither acknowledged it—"but I wouldn't presume to take up more of your time—"

"Oh, but might I presume to take up some more of yours?" Palpatine rose to meet him, something pointed about the gesture, though it went right over Luke's head. "You are correct that I have an appointment immediately after this, but if you yourself are free, I would recommend having someone show you around the Palace!"

Luke and Leia had arranged to meet in the Senate gardens that morning, and he'd already had to change it to the Palace gardens after breakfast so he could heed the Emperor's summons. "I..."

"I know you've been here before, boy," Palpatine said fondly, if exasperatedly. The tone didn't suit him. "But you've been distant for so many months, and we've undergone some renovations in that time—fully wiping away the stain of the Jedi." He smiled toothily at him. Luke gave a nervous smile back. "It would do you good to see them in full."

Luke didn't dare ask why.

There was a presence and a commotion at the door; they both turned their heads at once to see a red guard enter, closely followed by Mara. She stopped there, bowing to Palpatine and giving Luke a look, as the guard exited again.

Luke looked from her to Palpatine and back again.

_Palpatine approves_, his father had said, all those days ago before he'd put it out of his mind.

His father, who'd gone on about Mara and Leia until Luke was sick of both their names.

...oh no.

Luke looked back at Palpatine—at the carefully controlled but unnervingly smug expression on his face.

He didn't know whether to laugh or vomit.

Cackle hysterically, maybe?

"Mara, dear, show Luke around the newest extensions, wouldn't you?" Palpatine said, though his tone made it clear it was nothing but an order. "The gardens especially—I've heard he's well-acquainted with the _Senate_ gardens"—another pointed look and Luke wanted to _scream_—"but our more private gardens here in the Palace are far more splendid, I would say. The Senate gardens are bound to include samples of _every_ flora from every civilised world—here, it is more about the plant than the politics. Only the best are allowed. You'd enjoy them."

Luke did everything he could to restrain his sigh. "Of course, Your—"

He cut himself off at Palpatine's look. Mara raised her eyebrows.

"Of course, master," Luke said, and Mara's eyebrows climbed even higher.

* * *

Vader stared at all the information they had on Angel and tried not to feel unmotivated.

The attack on the Academy had invigorated him somewhat—it had reminded him why he'd returned to Coruscant, and what he had to _lose_ on Coruscant; it had reminded him _why_ Angel was a threat—but Palpatine's confession had... well.

Knowing that it was part of a propaganda ploy irked him, not in the least because he was one of the people it had been successful on.

And once he removed any and all information gathered from fruitless interrogations of the instigators of _that_, all samples of weapons and analyses of their attacks... the dossier they had on this thief had returned to being especially depressing.

Angel had robbed the Palace. They had robbed IMH. They had robbed countless other places less well guarded, but it was those two that concerned him—those two showed skill.

And at all of these break ins, not one had held sufficient evidence to narrow down the culprit at all.

So once again he was left chasing shadows. _Tookas. Accents. Overly dramatic names._

This was pathetic.

They had broken into the Palace. They had broken into IMH. They had broken into Tarkin's residences.

Would they target him, next?

It would be a foolish thing to do. He would destroy them easily.

But if he wasn't home?

And if Luke was?

He didn't realise that his gaze had drifted from the datapad in his hand to the holo at the table, Luke's beaming grin sending something sweet and painful through his chest, until there was a knock at the door.

He allowed himself two cycles of his respirator to compose himself, eyes not once leaving Luke's face, before he boomed, "Enter."

Piett did, standing sharply to attention and immediately saluting. "My lord, the reports on the _Executor_, correspondences from the other captains of Death Squadron and updates on the security of the surface."

He held out the datapads. He had the spine not to flinch or gawk when Vader floated them into a neat pile on the corner of his desk; he'd served with him for long enough.

"Tell me, Captain Piett," Vader said almost conversationally, still gazing at the holo. "You hunted pirates in the Axxilan fleet before joining the Empire, did you not?"

"I did, my lord."

"So you are accustomed to hunting shadows? Criminals who will hide in populated areas, in crime-ridden filth and poverty, and use the workings of honest men to disguise their evil?"

Piett blinked. "I suppose, sir." He glanced at the holo, then—as if he'd realised what this was about. "Are you... concerned about Luke, with this criminal on the loose?"

"I am always concerned about Luke," Vader said dryly.

Piett's lips curled upwards slightly at that. "Hm. Indeed."

"The Coruscanti Police Forces are a joke and my own investigative team have met with no more success," Vader said baldly. He could trust Piett. He knew there were spies on the _Executor_, but he knew Piett was not one of them. "What would you propose we do to hunt down a Rebel criminal who does not conduct war, like the bulk of the Rebellion, but scurries like a rat between the shadows and broad daylight?"

Piett barely hesitated. "As much as it smarts my pride to admit it, my lord, our most successful raids on pirate bases came when we collaborated with an ex-pirate or a mercenary ourselves," he said. "As officers, we cannot think in the same way a brutal, barbaric pirate or burglar might, but to hire a mercenary as a consultant could be extraordinarily useful to get a different point of view. They may know more about this _Angel_ simply by dint the circles in which they operate, where Imperial censorship does not operate."

"You are suggesting," Vader asked incredulously, "that I ally the might of the Empire with a petty criminal?"

"Yes, my lord." Piett had always had a spine. Vader respected that about him. "Sometimes, one must fight fire with fire." He glanced at the holo again. "To prevent it from setting absolutely everything ablaze."

_But fighting _sparks_ with fire?_ something at the back of Vader's mind said. He tried to ignore it; Palpatine's little, overdramatic speech had been just that: overdramatic. _That would just _invite_ the inferno_.

Vader reached out, and sensed Piett barely hold back a flinch, but it was not directed at him. Instead, he summoned the holo to hand, catching it gently, before deactivating it and placing it in one of the compartments on his belt.

"Thank you for your input, Captain," Vader said. "It has been most valuable. Dismissed."

Piett nodded. "Of course, my lord," he said, and left the room.

Vader stared at his datapads for a moment, frowning.

There were all sorts of criminals he'd worked with before, who he knew to be loyal to whoever paid them. Cad Bane had been skilled... but even after all these years and his former apprentice's reappearance and foolish rebellious loyalties, Vader still held a grudge for how he had threatened Ahsoka. Aurra Sing was dead—found at the bottom of a ravine. Boba Fett was skilled, he supposed, but Vader would be hard-pressed to get him away from Jabba...

He would think about it, he resolved. For now, he would train, and take his mind off things.

It wasn't until he'd destroyed three of his training droids that he remembered who, exactly, had supplied them to him.

* * *

"You don't need to look so grouchy about having to spend time with me," Mara teased pointedly, jabbing him in the side with her elbow. Luke tried to smile.

"I had to get up early to get here for that breakfast," he shot back. "I'm not grouchy, just a bit tired."

"Well then, I'll endeavour not to bore you." They turned left down an opulent corridor bedecked in Imperial red, black and grey, and Luke peered around, shifting awkwardly. He was used to Imperial minimalism, not all this grandeur, and he doubted that he'd ever be comfortable among it.

"You alright?" Mara asked.

"Perfect. Thank you."

Mara just pinched her lips sceptically and mentioned something about renovations to the windows, or to the structures outside. If he looked, he could definitely see that there was more... _emptiness_ out there, fewer buildings with the traffic more distant than he remembered. The biggest luxury of all on Coruscant: space.

But that was just looking at things that had been destroyed, not anything that had been created. Mara led him away again, down a few more corridors in the south-west wing, and...

He smiled as they passed through the corridor with the portraits in it. He'd been here recently, at least, and as much as he was distantly aware of Mara talking beside him, something about expanding it to include more recent heroes of the Empire and increase the impression of the Empire's might, he found his feet wandering over to the same portrait as always.

"Luke?" Mara asked quietly when she realised he wasn't listening. Luke's eyes traced the deep purple dress she was wearing, the neat brushstrokes of her hair up to a silver hairpiece that reminded him oddly of the symbol of the Alliance. As much as her expression was stern, he felt a warmth every time he looked at her.

Luke blinked. "Yes—sorry, Mara, I—"

"What's with her?" she asked. "You always look at that painting, every time you come down this corridor. So does your father, though it's harder to tell."

"Have you been spying on us?"

She stiffened. "It is my job to observe," she argued.

He snorted. "I know. I was joking." He shrugged, gaze finding his mother's again. It was always difficult to find any resemblance between him and her, he thought. They looked so different—Luke looked so much like his father.

So it meant something whenever people drew comparisons between them. Even if it was Palpatine who did it...

"She was my mother," he admitted. He pointedly didn't look at Mara as she digested that information, and she was cut off in the Force; whatever expression she made, whatever reaction she had, he saw and sensed nothing.

"I can see the resemblance," she said.

He snorted. "Can you?"

"Yes," she said, irritated. "I'm not lying. Though she reminds me a lot of someone else, too, if I can remember..."

_Leia_.

Luke swallowed. Of course, he— he shouldn't have brought this up.

For one thing, he still needed to talk to Leia, make their appointment in the Palace gardens. For another thing...

His sister looked a lot more like their mother than he did.

He tried weakly, "Senator Naberrie of Naboo is her niece. They look very similar."

"You're cousins with a senator. I should've known." Luke laughed a bit at that, but he didn't like the way Mara was frowning.

"I used to always get Senator Naberrie mixed up with Senator Organa," she admitted. "They look very similar as well."

Kriff. Kriff, kriff, kriff...

Luke shrugged. "There are a lot of pale-skinned, brown-haired women in this galaxy."

Mara watched him for a moment. "Indeed."

Then she turned away from the portraits. "Well, since you've found these so fascinating, we can move onto the gallery His Majesty had put together, if you wish? I'm assured that it features the greatest artworks from all over the galaxy—"

Her comlink buzzed.

Luke jumped a little bit, but Mara didn't flinch; she just dug it out of her pocket and scowled at the message she'd received. "I have to go," she said abruptly. "It's a short issue I have to deal with, but I'd better deal with it anyway."

She glanced from him, to something down the corridor. "His Majesty wanted you to see the gardens—take the second corridor on the left, then turn at the third right, then left again and you'll see them. I'll meet you there after I'm done."

Well.

That was convenient.

It was convenient, and Luke didn't trust it, but that didn't mean he couldn't take advantage of it.

"I look forward to it," he said, smiling winningly, and she rolled her eyes.

* * *

He was caught halfway through a thought that the Palace gardens were far less impressive that the Senate ones, much blander, when he both sensed and saw Leia's presence just up ahead. She was sitting on a wrought iron bench under a trellis of hanging yellow flowers. He didn't notice any cameras in this part of the gardens, but this was the Imperial Palace; he had no doubt that there would be some here, hidden. He had to trust that Leia had done her research and chosen the best spot for them.

She heard him coming a moment later and turned to smile at him, her hair up in a crown of braids rather than her usual signature buns, and patted the bench next to her.

He sat. "What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Right to the point," she drawled. "You're not exactly political with your words, are you?"

"Am I supposed to be?" he teased for a moment, but he couldn't hold that light-heartedness. It seeped away like rain into drains. "I was invited into the Emperor's company this morning. Now, my escort had to go and deal with something, but I know she'll be back any minute so I really need to make this quick."

"Of course. Sorry, Luke." She took a deep breath and laced her fingers together on her knee. "I had a vision a few days ago—or rather, I think you did, and I shared it. I don't suppose you want to talk about that?"

He grimaced. "You _saw_ that?"

"I saw it, and it concerned me. It concerned my teacher as well. I would like to talk to you about it."

Luke sighed and said, "I don't know what it was either. Palpatine asked me to look into the future for him—_yes, I was very concerned about that as well_—and I saw... _that_. The way I described it meant that I think he was satisfied, he thought—"

"He thought you were going to be a _Sith Emperor_?" Leia got out through gritted teeth.

He winced. "Yes. That's what I let him believe."

"And what did you _actually_ believe?"

"I don't know if I was Sith," Luke said. "I don't know if I was Emperor there because I believed in the Empire, or because some strange twist of destiny had put me there. My father..."

"Your father wants you to be Emperor, I presume? Wants you to helm his beloved Empire, wants to see you in charge and serve _you_?"

"Leia..."

She relaxed.

Sucked in a breath.

"I'm sorry, Luke. I know you don't want this. I trust you."

_He's your father too,_ Luke almost said, but that wouldn't help his situation at all.

"Leia, I don't know what to tell you about that vision," he said. "I don't know what it meant. I don't like what it suggests. But no future is set in stone, and I don't believe that it's my destiny to join the Sith."

Leia sighed, and said, "I believe you."

Luke smiled tightly. "Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?"

"There's a few senators who I've heard have some sort of secret worth keeping," Leia said. "They're rich, too—stealing from them could certainly help Han out quite a bit. From what I've heard, he's still in trouble."

"He's always in trouble," Luke said. "Tell me about the senators."

"Erialus in particular, and a few others—I'll get you a list. From what we can tell, they're making money off something for the Empire, and whether it's slaves or weapons development or farmland, we want to know what it is. See if you can find out?"

"Nothing to do with the Tarkin initiative chip, I suppose?" Luke said wryly.

Leia grinned. "Tarkin has his fingers in _all _the pies in the Empire. How do you think we know who's involved in this project?"

"Are any of the other pies interesting?"

"_All_ _of_ _them_ are interesting." She squeezed his shoulder. "You're making a difference."

He glanced down and smiled.

"It might be useful for you to target only some of the senators' homes, to keep them from realising what you're trying to find out," she added. "And mix in some other senators, to disguise it further."

"I can even hit your residence to cover it up thoroughly."

"_Perfect_. I'll put out something flashy and expensive for you to steal." She tilted her head, like she was making a mental note. "Do you think Han would prefer a silver necklace with a diamond the size of a convor egg on it, or a historical Alderaanian jester's hat encrusted with jewels?"

"The jester's hat," Luke said solemnly. "He couldn't possibly pull off a necklace."

She dissolved into peals of laughter, but suddenly Luke wasn't listening. There was a red head heading for him through the winding paths.

His time was up.

"One last thing," he whispered. "I give permission for you to use Angel's name for propaganda—I accept it."

"What changed your mind?" She matched his tone in a hushed voice.

He shrugged. "I want to make a difference."

Then he stood up and jogged away, to where Mara gave him a curious look but dutifully continued her tour.

* * *

When Luke got home, for once, his father was already there. In his study, sure enough, but that had never been off-limits to Luke so he had no qualms about leaning against the doorway quietly, waiting patiently for his father to look up from his datapad and acknowledge him.

"Good evening, Father," Luke said. He'd gone back to help out the mechanic he sometimes worked with after the tour of the Palace; he could feel the oil splattered on his face stretch when he smiled. "Odd of you to be back so early."

"But not odd of you to be back so late," Vader parried dryly.

Luke sighed, still smiling. "If this is about..."

"It's not, son. I am sorry if I gave you the impression that I do not think you can handle yourself, yesterday. I know you can." He put down the last of his datapads and gave him his full attention. "But fortunately, I've found another way to deal with this threat, so I need worry no longer anyway."

"You always worry and you always will," Luke shot back. "But what method have you found this time?"

"I was using the wrong resources before, and the wrong men. I am dealing with a criminal, not a Rebel."

"Are Rebels not criminals?"

"Luke." He could _feel_ his father's eye roll. "Nevertheless, that issue ends now. I am sure we will meet with success soon."

"I'm sure you will, Father," Luke said automatically, retreating from the office door to leave him in peace, to walk away. He needed to make his plan of attack for those senators' residences he had to break into tonight...

Or tomorrow night, he decided. Tonight, he deserved some time off.

And he didn't even think he'd have been able to make himself go, anyway.

Not with the way the bad, bad feeling his father's words had given him was gnawing a hole in his chest.

* * *

Palpatine listened to Mara report then dismissed her, folding his hands in his lap.

Luke's behaviour was, as always, intriguing. And... baffling.

What he'd said earlier, about not wanting to use nepotism or connections to get ahead... he was a smart boy. Palpatine had genuinely not expected him to say something so stupid.

Of course he'd need connections to get ahead. Of course, in this Empire he'd so carefully cultivated, patronage and _loyalty_ would be what reaped rewards, rather than pure, threatening skill.

But if Luke was naive enough to believe otherwise... to actively _reject_ his offer... he would have to come up with another way of enticing him to stay on Coruscant and train with him.

Mara had found Luke striking up a conversation with Organa in the gardens; clearly the two were close, though whatever the nature of that relationship was mattered far less to Palpatine than it clearly did to Vader. All that mattered there was that it could perhaps be _used_, in so many ways—if Organa continued as senator, she would have to stay on Coruscant and Luke may well stay to be near her; if Palpatine trained Luke and gained his fealty, then he could teach the boy to use that friendship to investigate any of the Organas' potential Rebel ties; or quite simply, if Organa was _threatened_...

But no, he decided. He wanted something more concrete than that; he wanted a backup plan, and first and foremost, he _needed_ a way to keep that boy on planet, to dedicate himself to the Sith. That vision had made it clear that it was certainly a _possibility_, a likely future; perhaps all that it needed was a nudge in the right direction.

But what should that nudge be?

With all this Angel business distracting Vader with one threat, he would be utterly blindsided if Palpatine moved in now. This was the ideal time to do something to consolidate young Skywalker as _his_.

But what should he do?

What did the boy _need_, to come to his senses and reach his full potential?

...what had he said, exactly on that?

_I feel that I have no purpose. There is no place for me here at the moment. _

Palpatine considered it. Slowly. In depth.

_Before I learn to wield my power, I would like to establish with myself what I would wield it _for.

Then he smiled.

Luke was his mother's son, very much. But he was also his father's son.

Both of those qualities would come in _very_ useful. The acumen and the raw power. The charm and the forcefulness.

The naïveté, and how _easy_ he was to manipulate.

Good. Good.

He knew exactly how he should proceed.


	12. The Announcement

Luke was woken uncomfortably early the next morning by a sharp, persistent buzzing by his ear. He groaned and rolled over.

It kept buzzing.

"What...?" He groped for his comlink and dragged it over to him, checking some of the messages left over—

Leia's concerned voice blared in his ear.

Closely followed by Zev's concerned and excited voice.

All sorts of other voices, old tutors wishing congratulations and old classmates wanting to catch up, and—

Then he went back and listened to what Leia had said again. In detail. Processing it.

Then he checked the message he'd received from the Palace—from Palpatine.

Luke said, "Shavit."

* * *

Doctor Aphra's hologram hovered in front of him. The moment she materialised, she opened her mouth to say something—some irritating, disrespectful greeting, no doubt—but his voice boomed out before she could, and good riddance.

"_Before_ you say anything inane about the functioning of the training droids you built me and my requirement for more," he said. She grinned nervously at that, but didn't move to interrupt. "I am here to ask what you know about the Coruscanti thief _Angel_."

_"Angel? That spectre who's been taking the underworld by storm?"_ She shrugged. _"I haven't been to Coruscant in months, since I dropped off your droids—"_

"Do not lie to me. I am aware of your recent escapades here—who do you think it was that allowed you to escape from that skyhook unscathed?"

She blinked. _"Ah. Then—thanks, boss?"_

"Do not make a habit of involving yourself with Black Sun or any other powerful Imperial affiliates, lest the effort and sacrifices required to keep you useful outweigh the usefulness itself."

_"Noted. Now,"_ she chirped,_ "how can I be useful for you this time?"_ Vader sighed inwardly. She was even perkier than Luke—though far less innocent and far more annoying. _"More droids, a follow up on the Dantooine investigation project—"_

"A different investigation project."

She was smart: he saw it in her eyes the moment it clicked. _"You want me to investigate _Angel_?"_

"They are a criminal, a petty thief who operates in the underworld. Any attempts by a legitimate, respectable, _Imperial_ body to investigate them have failed."

_"So now you're turning to the outlaws."_

"Do not presume to take offence."

_"I don't."_ She crossed her arms across her chest, her sleeve tugging down to expose the brown skin of her arm, the tattoo that snaked up it. _"Where do you want me to start?"_

"Where are you now?"

_"The Ring of Kafrene."_

"Where did you hear of Angel in the first place?"

_"Here. There's plenty of stormtroopers and not much love for the Empire. Gossip spreads."_

"Hm." He glared at her, and she did not have the sense to look away. Aphra was like that, but her usefulness outweighed her ability to irritate, for now. "Investigate where you heard it from. Track down any and all information about them that you can find, and report to me. This thief needs to be found and brought to justice, before—"

_"One petty thief? Are they really that much of a threat?"_ Aphra scoffed.

"No. Not yet. But they must be dealt with before they can become one."

_"And you want me to deal with them?"_

"I want _you_ to _find_ them. Find their identity, find their attachments, find their motivations, find their location. So that _I_ can deal with them."

_"Darth Vader, dealing with a petty thief?"_

"That _thief's_ actions have been and will be twisted by the Rebellion to use in propaganda. I will not suffer more idiots dying in this fruitless war because a glorified burglar decided to flaunt their mastery of Imperial security to the entire galaxy."

_I won't have the Empire look weak._

_And I _won't_ have my son targeted by this upstart._

Aphra swallowed. _"Yes, boss,"_ she said. Her voice was cheery again. _How_ she stayed cheery so often, he didn't know. _"Do you have any information I can start with?"_

Vader thought of his datapad—all those summaries on Angel's movements, Angel's attack patterns, what little information they had gleaned.

"I have nothing that will be of use to you," he said. "You are an archaeologist—you claim to be skilled at _uncovering_ things." She swallowed. "Uncover this."

_"Yes, boss."_ Something sparked in her eyes, then, and he did _not_ like the realisation that stole over her, in that moment. _"Hey, I meant to ask, how's your kid—"_

There was a sharp rapping at the door.

Vader whirled, rage roaring in his chest and the Force barrelling towards the door controls to yank it open with perhaps more vigour than necessary. On the other side stood Captain Piett, a datapad clutched in his hand, pale, mousy face pinched and grey.

"Captain," he ground out. "You _know_ I do not suffer interruptions while I am working."

"Of course, my lord," Piett said. He gave Aphra's hologram a cursory glance, and she uncrossed her arms to place them on her hips, but if he clocked that this was a criminal Vader was consulting on _his_ recommendation, he did not show it. "But it is early morning in Imperial City on Coruscant, and this announcement just came through. I thought it doubtful that you had already seen it, and... it is _highly_ important that you see it."

Aphra had blatantly raised her eyebrows now, but Vader paid her no heed. He just waved his hand and the datapad came flying from Piett to him. He switched it on—

And _stared_.

Luke face stared back at him—an official holo from that stupid parade Palpatine had forced them to attend. Luke looked good in the holo, admittedly: it was of him standing at the balustrade, looking out onto the parade, watching it all with a hopeful, _thoughtful_ expression.

But it was not the holo that concerned him.

It was the Aurebesh that scrolled next to it: a bold title, a bit of eye-catching news, and the article underneath it.

EMPEROR PALPATINE DECLARES OFFICIAL HEIR AND SUCCESSOR: LUKE SKYWALKER, SON OF LORD VADER, TO ASCEND TO THE TITLE OF IMPERIAL PRINCE.

The datapad crumpled in his hands.

"My _son_," he hissed, and he wasn't sure if he was talking to Aphra, or Piett, or maybe Palpatine himself, far away in his precious palace, "is _no concern of yours_."

* * *

Luke had switched off his comlink. He'd felt physically nauseated when he read the news that Leia had sent him, and seeing the overwhelming response it garnered... no. No, no, no, no, no.

It was ten o'clock. It was still too early to deal with this.

Luke had been neglecting some of the projects he'd promised to get done for the local mechanic's shop recently, and they were a good way to take his mind off things. So he worked on them now: tweaking the controls on the transports he'd snuck into his father's hangar without him noticing, fiddling with a motor where it went haywire, whacking his head not once, not twice, but three times when he forgot that he was lying on his stomach under a speeder and sat up too quickly...

It proved an _excellent_ distraction.

By the time he'd cleaned his hands of engine grease, soot and sweat, he glanced back at his comlink. Typed out a reply to Leia, deleted most of the messages from old friends, blocking the reporters who'd somehow got hold of his frequency—_someone_ in his contacts was making money, it seemed—and hovering over whether or not he should reply to Zev's anxious enquiry... then he saw his father's.

_Oh, shavit_. That seemed to be his favourite word today.

Rather than reading what he was sure were increasingly irate messages, he just... commed his father. Directly. Cringing pre-emptively.

He did not cringe in vain.

_"Luke!"_ his father thundered. _"I have been trying to get ahold of you for nearly an hour. Why have you not been replying?"_

"_Because_ everyone wants to hear from me now and I figured you'd just try to contact me through the Force if you really wanted to say something!"

_"I..."_ Vader paused, then in the little hologram, his finger sprang out to wag in Luke's face. The effect was somewhat ruined by the holo's size. _"I did not want to risk _any more_ attention being focused on you by the Emperor, young one, an endeavour that _you_ seem intent on foiling. _What_ did you say to—"_

"Before you accuse me, I had nothing to do with this," Luke said hotly. "I _just woke up_! And I woke up to _this_! You think I'm _happy_ about this—you know what my reaction to that... _vision_ was! _I don't want this, Father!_"

Vader was silent for a moment, breathing. In, out. In, out.

_"Perhaps it was overly hasty for me to jump to such a conclusion," _he allowed.

Luke tried to smirk. "You worry about me. I know. I love you too, Father."

_"The Emperor has shown remarkable interest in you of late,"_ Vader said. _"Have you any idea what he wants?"_

Luke said, "I think we both know what he wants." Vader's silence was enough confirmation. "And this... _ascension_ is just an excuse to get me into the Imperial Palace more, to force me to spend more time with him." Neither one of them wanted that.

_"I will speak with the Emperor. Perhaps he can be convinced to take this back."_

Luke grimaced doubtfully. "It's a galactic announcement. He won't take it back."

_"Alter it, then,"_ he conceded. _"But... I wanted to keep you _away_ from him, Luke. I do not want you trained as a Sith."_

Luke lowered his head. "I know. I'm not ready."

_"You are more than ready, little one. You have been ready for years."_

Luke blinked. "What? You said—"

_"Perhaps..."_ Vader looked away. His father, the strongest, most belligerent, most _direct_ man in the galaxy... looked away. _"Perhaps I merely wanted to keep you for myself, for a little longer."_

Luke blinked. "Father..."

He sighed.

_"I... will speak to Palpatine about this development,"_ Vader resolved. He jabbed his finger again. _"Do _not_ answer your comlink, for anyone—"_

"Even you?" Luke said wryly.

_"—until I return with an update on the situation. Do not allow the press to find out anything, do not leave home, and _do not_ get into trouble."_

Luke grimaced. Why was _staying out of trouble_ what his father saw fit to put emphasis on?

Vader was silent, for a moment. _"I mean it, Luke,"_ he said eventually. _"Stay out of trouble. I will do my best to find a way to get you out of this situation."_

Luke bowed his head. "Thank you, Father," he whispered. For the first time, he allowed himself to _look_ at the situation, straight on—and he hated it. "I will."

* * *

Vader didn't have the time to enter into the foul mood he usually did when traipsing around the Jedi Temple turned Imperial Palace. The red guards met him at the door, for once, and escorted him right to the throne room. Palpatine was once again standing at the vast window, the vista of Coruscant glittering before him, but Vader didn't give it a glance; he forged right for him, heedless of the guards that fell respectfully back to the door, heedless of whether Palpatine was about to gloat over this new decision of his or—

"Lord Vader," Palpatine snapped, doing a full turn towards him and glaring. "My message ordered you to bring young Skywalker here—it is him I wish to talk to, not you."

"I received no _message_, master," Vader shot back. He was well-aware that such disrespect bordered on insolence, on insubordination, to Palpatine, and he braced himself for an onslaught of _chastisement_... but it never came. When Palpatine's gaze flickered back to the window, Vader understood:

They had never let Luke learn about his master's punishments before. Vader had done it for Luke himself, to keep him innocent and bold, but now... now he was starting to question Palpatine's motives for only unleashing himself when Luke was too far away to truly sense it.

Perhaps that was a side of himself he didn't want to risk his future Sith prince seeing, just yet.

_Yet._

So Vader had the courage to press on: "I came immediately the moment I saw the announcement. How dare—"

"How dare I do what, Lord Vader?" Palpatine asked silkily, flexing his right hand. Sparks crackled between his fingers but Vader had called his bluff; they vanished a moment later when he turned away. "How dare I elevate the boy to the status he deserves, that is his birthright? You and I both know that when I pass, you are my heir apparent, and we also both know that you have no interest in ruling whatsoever. I had thought you would be thrilled at the chance to have your son officially instated as my heir—the next ruler after me."

"Then why," Vader said, "did you not consult me?"

"I had thought this was the natural course of action from our conversation just a few days ago, do you not remember? Shortly before Angel stole that single holocron from my vault. He _is_ the heir to our empire—whether he likes it or not—and his potential begs to be trained. You know as well as I that with someone of his talent standing by us, another Sith for the galaxy to admire and obey, this petty war would be over."

"And yet you could have informed me of this before you made the announcement. Why did you not."

"Because I know that your son does not believe himself ready. _You_ do not believe him ready. That is a lie." Palpatine turned fully towards him, then, hobbling along the floor to stand atop the steps on the dais, eye-to-eye with Vader. "He is more than ready—but neither of you have the sight to see it. Now is the ideal time to begin young Skywalker's training, Lord Vader," he rapped his cane against the floor for emphasis, "and I do not intend to let it go to waste."

"You are trapping him into spending time with you."

Palpatine narrowed his eyes. Vader understood that—he _was_ being bold.

"Indeed," he said. "For his own good. You know as well as I do that sometimes the young need guidance—did I not insist on spending time with you, in order to draw you away from the pernicious influence of the Jedi and show you what true power is?"

Vader stared.

_You did not help me save Padmé's life,_ he wanted to say.

He did not say that.

He said, "Luke is very upset."

"Good. As expected then. If he can turn that into anger, I can teach him better."

Vader ground his teeth.

Palpatine laughed. "Do not tell me you are resistant to this because of your _paternal feelings towards him_, Vader. You assured me you had no attachment."

"I have none."

"I _know_ you are lying."

"You intend to throw him to the mercy of the court, of the Senate, of the press," Vader hissed, "just to force him into training with you."

"I intend to throw him to the wolves, yes. And I intend to watch him win. Do not tell me you do not have faith in him to do so."

"I have faith in him to get into trouble."

"And faith in him to get out of it again?"

Vader swallowed. His master always talked circles around him.

"This is his destiny, my friend," Palpatine said. "He told you about his vision, I presume? That proves it. He will rule this galaxy, and no amount of teenage reticence is going to stop me from ensuring he knows _how_ to rule it, when the time comes." He took a step forwards, and down, so he could rest his hand on Vader's shoulder. "And that means, as much as I know that you are attached to your child, you must allow him to grow up."

Vader stared, and felt his shoulders sag.

"Luke is important to me," Palpatine whispered. "We do not have the close, grandfatherly relationship I had hoped we would have, when you first returned from your mission to execute Kenobi with a baby in tow, though I do not begrudge you the desire to keep him away from politics on Coruscant while he was _young_. Nevertheless, he is important to you, and therefore important to me—and important to the future of the Empire.

"He _is_ the future: he is our spark, our symbol, who can rival Angel's a hundredfold and show why the _Empire will always win_. And he _needs_ to be trained."

Vader hated this.

He really, really hated this.

But his master was right.

Luke was still a child, in many ways. He could fight, he could defend himself, but he had no training in the Force beyond what little Vader had taught him, and he had no purpose—he knew that. He was indecisive, an arrow without a target. He needed... _something_ to bring him to his full glory. And if that was delving into politics like his mother before him...

So be it.

"Yes, master," Vader said finally. Luke would be furious at him, but... this was what was best for him. It must be. And Vader had faith in his son to see through his master's manipulations, wherever they came in.

He just wished that he could've trained him—even if he'd known, from the moment he and Palpatine had first discussed it while baby Luke slept in his crib, that that right would belong to his master and his master alone.

Palpatine would never tolerate otherwise.

"Send him to me tomorrow, then, Vader," Palpatine said, finally turning away. Vader grimaced behind his mask. "I would speak to my new prince, and ease him into the role gently."

Vader loved his son dearly. He was the son of a lord and a queen. He was clever, charming, endearing—and as little as he liked mingling with higher statuses at obligatory functions, he was good at it.

But the concept of Luke being a prince was _beyond_ _him_.

"Yes, master," he said finally, and turned to walk out of the throne room.

This was Luke's destiny. This had always been the way it would go—and Vader would not complain about getting to see his son ascend to heights heretofore unknown to him.

And besides:

Palpatine would not be denied.

* * *

Luke stared at his map of Imperial City and rolled his stylus between his forefinger and thumb.

The senators on the list Leia had given him had their senatorial residences marked out in red. He circled the hologram with soft feet, waving the stylus; it detected the motion and drew a blue dotted line through the starscrapers. There was a maintenance shaft and walkway along by Leia's residence—which he _knew_ he needed to hit, there was no doubt about that—which led right along to Senator Falynn's residence as well.

So. He'd take that path, hit Leia then Falynn, then hop on a speeder and take the short trip to—

He sensed his father coming a few minutes before he came, and got rid of the holo quickly, stuffing it in his pocket. He pulled up something to watch on the holonet instead, flicking between what looked like a show about podracing and one about the Clone Wars...

"Luke," his father said, coming straight into his room. "I have spoken to the Emperor about this new... development."

Luke sat up immediately. "Did you talk him out of it?"

"I believe you should go through with it."

Luke blinked.

And Luke stared.

His father stared back, unashamedly, but Luke was... flummoxed. There was a jab in his chest as he said, "You think I should _go through with it_? I know that the press puts us and him in an awkward position but—"

His father still did not turn away, but Luke got the feeling he wasn't meeting his eye. "You have told the Emperor—and myself—that you are looking for direction in your life. The Force has seen fit to provide it."

"_Palpatine_ saw fit to provide it," Luke snapped. "And you're _agreeing with him_?"

"I do not agree with him that you should be thrust immediately into the court, but I do share his faith that you will do better than you expect at the moment. And you need training, Luke. If he is willing to give it..."

"Father, if I train with Palpatine," Luke pleaded, "who will I become?"

His father took a step forwards and rested his hands on his shoulders. "Who you were always meant to be," he intoned.

"You're just too afraid to stand up to him." Luke jerked away in disgust, and scowled at the hand that tried to follow his motion. "You don't actually _agree_ with him, you— you wouldn't, you can't..."

"_Luke_." Vader's voice was thunder. "I am certain that this is the correct path for you, and you _know_ that I only want what is best for you."

"You just have weird ways of showing it, huh?" Luke paced away, hugging himself. His bedroom window provided a view of Coruscant; he looked out it now, gaze fixed on the distant airlanes. Their constant motion, the criss-crossing cars, calmed him somewhat. "Spending time with _him_ is not going to be good for my health."

"He will not harm you."

"Father, if you actually believe that then you're a fool."

He sensed his father stiffen. "I would not put you in danger, my son," he growled. "If you are insinuating—"

"I'm doing _more_ than _insinuating_." He turned around to glare. "You—and him; both of you!—are taking away _my_ choice in the matter, _my_ choice in how I spend my life. Having your son as the Imperial prince might look rosy to you, but _I do not want this_. Father, I have everything I need to make my own decisions, and being prince—"

"Will provide you with both purpose and opportunities."

"It will _trap me_," Luke said. "And I will _never_ get away from it."

"That is the nature of destiny, my son," Vader informed him. "You will be Prince, and you will be Emperor one day. This has always been my plan for you—"

"_I don't think_," Luke snapped, "your precious son has exactly grown up to be a carbon copy of your _plan_!" He pointedly did not reach for the holo map in his pocket—or think of what he was planning to do.

"More than you know, Luke," Vader said softly, and stars, he was getting sentimental. It wasn't common, and Luke usually loved it when he did, but _not now_. "And you are greater and more wonderful than I could have ever dreamed in so many ways. But—"

"I will _not_ be Prince!"

"The galaxy needs you."

"The galaxy needs _me_," Luke said. "Not some child wearing a crown."

Vader said nothing for a while—it seemed he had nothing to say to that at all.

"You are both, Luke," came out at last. In truth, Luke wasn't convinced he was either.

He just turned away again. "So this is decided? I don't get a choice?"

"You have to understand—"

"I don't have to understand _anything_." His voice turned flinty. "Father, please leave."

"Luke—"

"Please." Luke was aware that his father meant well, but— "Leave me in peace to process the fact that you're flinging me into the very environment you worked so hard to keep me away from all my life, all because some wrinkled guy in a bathrobe told you he was right."

"Luke..."

Luke didn't respond. Didn't look at him.

And with that, Vader left. His anguish stained the Force.

Luke kept staring out the window. The sun was setting on this part of the planet now, the light glinting off the starscrapers like glowing embers.

He touched the holo of the map in his pocket. He'd need to leave in a few hours. He had stress to work through, and stuff to steal.


	13. The Project

**Note: I have not read the _Servants of the Empire_ books and I probably never will; most of my knowledge about what is explored in this chapter and then on comes from the animated shows and Wookieepedia.**

* * *

Coruscant glittered that night. It glittered every night, but with Luke's mind full of jewels and crowns and royalty, it seemed to be the epitome of all of that which he loathed.

He took his speeder and left it on the outskirts of the senatorial district; it was loud and unwieldy, but it could cover more distance than his bike. He used the speeder bike to get closer from there—it was something he'd been working on with the mechanic whose shop he worked at, an old, old bike that they'd finally managed to get up and running in some semblance of decency.

Then, they'd worked on how to make it totally silent.

So Luke slid along to the first senator's apartment: Senator Erialus, of Corellia. He wasn't the leader of this little circle, but he seemed to be the main source of funding, so he'd hit him first, and then he'd hit Leia, and then he'd... wing it based on what he found.

There were datachips in his belt. Gloves on his hands. A mask on his face.

He swallowed tightly, dumped his bike, and ran for it. He had fifteen minutes.

There was a guard on duty, of course, but it didn't take much work for Luke to dampen his presence, run along against the darkness like a fleeting shadow, and then press enough of the Force against his mind to just have him... _look away_. After that, it was right up the walkways and maintenance ladders—with a few hair-raising jumps—to get to the landing pad, where—

His boots whispered against the pad and he crept forwards. It was difficult to split his attention between the guard and the door, with the Force, but he had to be _quiet_, and—

The guard was looking away. For one instant, Luke released his grip on his mind and felt for the electronic lock on the door.

Felt the parts in the door, moving together.

Felt the wires, which bound it and the parts together.

Felt the alarm which would shriek if the mechanism lifted just a hair too far when the other safety measures weren't accounted for.

He planted his feet shoulder-width apart. Closed his eyes; took a deep breath. Lifted his hands, bunched the Force around him, and...

It hissed open.

Luke seized the guard's mind again before he could blink, then scoffed quietly. How arrogant was Erialus, that he only employed one guard to watch outside? Did he think his state-of-the-art _door_ was going to stop assassins or thieves? Did he think his reputation would do that?

Luke crept in and out and was gone like a whisper of morning wind. The door hissed shut behind him again, he released the guard, and they both shook themselves and got back to work.

Space was a luxurious commodity on Coruscant, and one not even the esteemed Erialus could afford. The corridor ahead of him was narrow and short, opening up almost immediately into a larger, circular, central room. Luke paused while he was there, scanning, scanning...

It was a comfortable room, he'd give him that. Half of it was some sort of living room with large windows that overlooked the airlanes, furnished with plump sofas, decorated with dark red pillows and one white one. A thick carpet covered it all.

The other half of it was a raised, wide, crescent-shaped section of the floor with a holoprojector and conference table on it, a small office just off behind it. Directly ahead o Luke, on the living room side, a door led to what Luke was pretty sure would be Erialus's bedroom, a guest bedroom and his staff's bedrooms; another door just on Luke's right probably led to a kitchen—

Something _hissed_.

He jumped back in alarm when that white pillow bounded for his legs.

He huffed but did not relax. Frowned deeply.

It was... a tooka.

Of course it was a tooka.

It was looking up at him with grumpy eyes, spitting, but Luke... Luke knew how to deal with tookas. He scrabbled around in the compartments on his belt for a moment, then pulled out some of the spare treats from the ones he'd give to the those at the old shelter.

"Hey," he murmured, so quietly he was sure that only the tooka would hear him, punctuating his words with a gentle brush of the Force. "Hey, it's alright. I'm alright. Look at me." He put the treats in a small pile in front of him and backed away, around towards the holoprojector. "You don't want to shriek."

The tooka shrieked.

He winced. There was a grumpy noise—"that blasted tooka!" some guard muttered behind the door to the bedrooms, but no one came up. If it shrieked again, though...

Luke glared at the tooka. The tooka glared back.

Then, very pointedly, it lowered its head to the pile and started eating.

Luke sighed, and went for the holoprojector. He'd start here, then the office, but if this was for _holoconferences_...

"You," he told the tooka sternly, "be quiet."

It did nothing. Just pointedly jumped up onto the raised section of the floor, then up again to scamper along the table.

"If the datachip slot is full of hair I'll know who to blame," he muttered, then lit up the holoprojector and started to sort through some of the files, downloading as many on his chips as possible; the Rebellion could crack them later. The tooka rubbed its head against his arm while he worked, the blue light blinding him and reflecting off its white fur—fur which it left _white and bright against his black clothing, for Force's sake_—

There. These files were all business calls to Moffs and Governors—though he _did_ note that there were... a great many comms between Senator Falynn and Empress Leeya of the Regency Worlds. Falynn was the _Senator_ for Arkanis—Leeya's throneworld—right? What was going on there...

The tooka purred.

"Oh, for—" He firmly lifted the tooka and placed it on the ground. It slashed at his leg with a huff before stalking off.

He rolled his eyes, and plugged in the datachip he had. "Arkanis..."

He peered through a few more of the files, raising his eyebrows. He'd never heard of any of these, which he supposed was the point of them being Imperial secrets—would he be privy to them, now that he was prince? Did he even _need_ to skulk in the shadows like this?—but... _Project_ _Pax Aurora. Project Stardust. Project..._

He raised his eyebrows.

He had a bad feeling about _all of this_, but...

_Project Harvester._

What was this?

He selected that file; it bleeped red, and asked for a password. He cursed. Tried to select another one.

It bleeped red and asked for a password.

The noise was quiet, but irritated the tooka. It yowled.

"Shut _up_, you blasted beast!" a gruff voice shouted from the direction of the kitchen. Luke grimaced.

The cat yowled again.

He didn't wait for the guards to decide to come in and shut the tooka up themselves. He closed the files—_Arkanis, Project Harvester, Arkanis, Project Harvester_—and just glanced around for anything else that might be worth stealing. He didn't have time to root through the office, unfortunately, and after Erialus realised someone had accessed his private files he'd up security, so he doubted he'd get another chance at this.

But there were other senators.

And Luke would definitely not get another chance if he was _caught_.

He scanned the room, briefly. Erialus was rich, certainly, but that manifested itself in opulent, lavish furniture, and posh wall hangings; as much as Luke would like to steal one of his fancy paintings or sofas, he wasn't sure he had the means right now...

A speeder flew past the window; its lights shone right into the living area. The window glass sparkled, and so did something else.

Luke lifted his gaze.

Dangling above the living room table, chock with diamonds hooked onto a metal frame, glittering in the artificial lights implanted in and around them... was a chandelier.

Well, Luke thought. That'll do.

Those diamonds looked _expensive_.

He stepped closer, and narrowed his eyes at it. He couldn't just _take the whole thing_—it was too big, and absolutely would not fit in his pack. But...

He _could_...

He closed his eyes. Touched the Force again, just like Leia had taught him, but tried to focus on that nitpick that he'd always struggled with: finesse.

And _control_.

The crystals tinkled against each other as he wrapped the Force around them, lifting them gently, gently...

He took in a deep breath, staring. Shrugged off the backpack he was wearing and opened it wide.

"Did that beast climb onto the chandelier again?" the guard's voice snapped. Luke wondered idly why they were in the _kitchen_ and not the living area itself, where most of the stuff that needed protecting was, but perhaps they were in there for a midnight snack.

"What the hell makes you think that?"

"Can't you hear that?"

They _could_ hear the diamonds clinking, but Luke wasn't skilled enough to stop that. He just hoped, and prayed...

"That's it," a voice said, "that blasted tooka is always causing me trouble—"

Luke barely had the time to dive behind the sofa, keeping his grip around the diamonds hovering in midair like a vice, and hold his breath.

A door hissed open. Heavy footsteps marched out.

_Don't look at the chandelier,_ Luke thought desperately, squeezing his eyes shut. There was no disguising the cloud of diamonds that now hung around it, rather than _on_ it. _Don't look..._

There was a screech, and a yowl, and—

"That _demon beast_!" the guard roared, and staggered back when a white torpedo barrelled at him, scratching and screeching. He fled back to the kitchen, leaving a few droplets of blood in his wake.

Luke let out all his breath in a laugh. Or maybe more of a huff.

Then he tilted his hand, flexed his hands, and the dozens of little strings of diamonds flew neatly into his backpack. He zipped it shut. When he picked it up, he grunted at the weight.

And, leaving the metal framework of the chandelier swinging on the ceiling behind him, he crept back out of the apartment. If he hadn't been dedicated to staying quiet, he'd have been whistling to himself.

* * *

Next up: an attack on the Organas. Leia ought to have left out something valuable that was small enough for him to steal, and he'd visited her Coruscant residences enough times as her friend that he knew the layout and security perfectly well; this one shouldn't be too hard. It shouldn't take up too much time, and he had other places to hit tonight.

So he dumped the chandelier diamonds in one of his hidey holes around Imperial City, took the bike along a tiny bit to the next starscraper, and up to the right level. Leia's place was nice— smaller than Erialus's but more cosy—but there were fewer places to hide his bike in and around it. He just dumped it in a dark maintenance scaffold and hoped no one came along to notice.

Then he made sure his mask was secure and clambered up.

Leia had two guards on duty on the landing pad, but they were unarmed—the great Alderaanian pacifism that he'd thought she'd forsaken for something more effective in action, he supposed. He raised his eyebrows; he wasn't going to hurt them anyway, but he doubted an assassin would be that kind.

He crept around, taking cover behind one of the speeders on the pad, watching them closely. The Force stirred around him—he could sense Leia, asleep in there; her aides, also unconscious; some more guards inside...

He nearly lost his balance when he resurfaced from the Force, and grabbed the speeder to stop himself from falling. He hit it too hard; there was a thud—quiet, but loud in the night.

"Did you hear that?" one of the guards said. Luke took a deep breath, ready to creep away...

"Yeah I did," the other guard agreed. "Sounded like it came from over there."

He gestured... right in the opposite direction to Luke.

"C'mon, let's go check it out," they said. Luke frowned. Both of them? That seemed lax...

Experimentally, he used the Force to tug on one of the other speeders, giving that a grinding and clanking noise, louder than the one before. They ignored that.

Luke rolled his eyes.

He went up to the door and it took less than a moment to get it open. And when he did...

"Subtle," he whispered. Leia was right there, standing in the middle of her living area, raising an eyebrow at him, as regal as ever despite the fact she was wearing a long white nightgown that, truth be told, looked almost identical to her princess garb. Beside her, on the table, was that blasted bejewelled jester's hat they'd been joking about. "Really subtle."

"You can take off your mask in here, we sweep through the place for bugs at midnight every night and there are none," was all she said, taking a seat on one of the sofas and patting the cushion next to her. "Besides. I thought that with all the places you'd be breaking into tonight, I'd tell the guards to go easy on you."

Luke reached up to pull off his woollen mask, grinning and grimacing at the sensation of fresh—or rather, conditioned—air on his face. It felt lovely. "I appreciate it," he admitted. "But that's not all there is to it."

She scoffed. "_Why_ are you like this? Can't I want to do something nice for my friend?"

"I'm sure you also want to talk to said friend about recent developments, in the comfort of your own home."

"This isn't _home_," she grumbled, but sighed. "Yes. Fine. I also stayed up late so I could talk to you about this whole _Imperial prince_ thing—see how you're feeling about it."

Luke winced. "You are gonna _hate_ yourself in the morning."

"_No_," she said fiercely. She wrapped her hand around his wrist and yanked him down to sit on the sofa next to her, her gaze sharp and worried. "I won't. Are you alright, Luke?"

He looked away. "I haven't spoken to anyone about it yet," he said quietly. "Except my father, and that was more of an argument."

"What does he think about it?"

"He didn't want me to do it. Then he went to talk to the Emperor about it and now he wants me to do it." He almost drew his legs up onto the sofa so he could hug his knees, but he didn't think Leia would want him tracking the dust and grime on his boots onto her cushions as well as her carpet. "He has no spine," he said bitterly.

"We must've got that from our birth mother, then," Leia said.

Luke blinked—both at Leia acknowledging her biological relationship with Vader, even if it was only to scorn him, and the thought itself. He huffed a laugh. "Padmé Amidala certainly wasn't lacking spine, no."

"_Padmé Amidala_?" Leia's eyes blew wide. "You mean— _she_—"

"Yes." He smiled broadly. "She was our mother."

Leia blinked fiercely for a moment. "Okay. Okay. Give me a minute, then I'll be right back on topic."

"We can talk about this later," he offered.

"We _will_ talk about this later, Luke Skywalker, don't you doubt that for a moment." She took a deep breath, then said: "Anyway. So, he supports you becoming the Prince?"

"I think he wants me to become the _Emperor_." Luke utter _disdain_ for that idea came through in his voice, his face, _and_ the Force. There wasn't much else he could do to make that clear.

Leia picked up on it, this time. She put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Luke," she said. "I know you're not cut out for politics."

"No. Definitely not."

Leia's hand on his shoulder shifted grips, then; she pulled him in so she could hug him, resting her head on his other shoulder. He closed his eyes.

"You know... you don't have to," she whispered. "I know Han offered you a way out, in case things went south—and if you want, you can always straight up join the Rebellion. Or we can arrange to find you a place to leave, and lie low, on Alderaan or Chandrila or anywhere else. You don't have to stay with Vader and Palpatine any longer."

"I love my father," Luke said, and his voice broke.

Leia squeezed him tighter. "I know."

"And he loves me," he continued, scrunching his eyes shut even tighter as tears started to seep out onto his cheeks. "He'd mobilise the entire blasted navy looking for me if I vanished, and he certainly wouldn't let me leave with his blessing. And then it would get caught up in all the publicity anyway—Vader's son, rebelling. The named Imperial prince, rebelling. I hate this."

"I know, Luke."

She did. She'd been a princess all her life. A lot of his aversion to the idea may be totally alien to her, but the rest of it... she understood completely.

"I don't want to be a prince. I don't want to be a Sith." He tried to breathe evenly, but his chest was racked with sobs. "I just want to help people."

"And I know that whatever you do," she insisted, "you will find a way to make that happen."

She drew back, but clasped his hands before they could escape, and met his gaze head on.

"I love you, brother. I have faith in you. And whatever you do—whether you want to leave with Han, or join a Rebel cell, or go into hiding and enjoy your life without this war... I know you'll find a way to do whatever you can to make things right."

"You forgot one option," he said, head bowed, hands clenching around her delicate fingers. "Staying here and weathering the storm."

She blinked. "Are you considering that?"

He paused... then nodded. "There's something I found in Erialus's files," he said. "Something called Project Harvester, something to do with Arkanis—maybe the Regency Worlds, or the academy there. But it looked important, and I have a bad feeling about it..."

Leia kept her gaze steady on him as he swallowed.

"If I become prince, I might get clearance to access this information," he said. "And I could give it to you so much more easily than I'm doing now."

She said nothing, at first. Then she said, "Is that what you want?"

He hesitated again, then nodded. "Yes. I want to help, as much as I can. Even if it means going into the gundark's den."

"Even if it means putting up with Sith training?"

He swallowed. "Even then."

Leia bowed her head for a moment and squeezed his hands. "You're so brave, Luke," she said. "You know you don't have to be brave all the time, don't you?"

He smiled, and squeezed them back. "I know." Then he let go, and stood up. "But I do have to be brave tonight."

"Don't forget the jester's hat," she quipped, tossing it at him. "I also put out some convenient jewellery for you to rifle through."

He smiled and caught it. It was heavier than it looked—he imagined old, Alderaanian court jesters wearing this, the lights dazzling off the diamonds, and wondered how quickly their necks had become stiff.

"Thank you," he said earnestly.

"Of course, Luke. You're my brother." He loved hearing the way she revelled in the word.

"I love you too," he told her automatically, and she smiled brighter than the stars.

* * *

He hit three more politicians' residences that night: Senator Anchal, of Christophsis; Senator Tseen, of Eriadu; and Governor Thanas of Rodia. They all represented worlds in the Arkanis sector—or, almost all of them, most of them in that area—and Luke found it... strange. Suspicious.

Perfect to investigate.

The last person whose residence he hit was Senator Falynn's herself.

It was more pointedly... different to Erialus and Leia's ones. Force, it was different to the others he'd broken into tonight. Not just because it was very little like the design and layout of buildings in Core World cultures, but because it revelled in its individuality. Arkanis was the capital of the Regency Worlds, the throneworld, full of harsh architecture and harsh lines and harsh weather. It was a welcome break from Imperial monotony.

Unlike most of the other apartments, this was not simply some block in the starscraper. It was the apartment at the very tip of the starscraper, the highest point on the building, one of the highest levels itself. That spoke of wealth, and wealth spoke of importance.

It also meant, most likely, that Falynn would have a skylight.

So. Instead of parking his bike near the landing pad and going in through the front door... he flew right up to the tip, where the air was fresher than most of Coruscant had seen in millennia, and...

_There_. He smiled.

It wasn't a skylight.

Instead, it was more like a cap of glass. The _ceiling_ was the skylight. The rounded tip had a whole balcony dedicated to it, the shining transparisteel roof letting in every glimmer of Coruscanti sun- and starlight, with a turbolift to access it on the right hand side. The whole thing was protected by a shimmering blue shield—understandable, that was a luxury that Falynn probably did not want to advertise, or a security risk she didn't want to run.

But if there was the shield up here, that sort of quality shield would be expensive. Luke doubted she would shell out to have extra guards watch the skylight entrance as well as her main entrance at night. Not when her shield kept her safe from nearly everyone.

And it did. From _nearly_ everyone.

Luke's eyes scanned the scene, his bike hovering in midair. Coruscant glittered below him; the wind tugged at his hair; the drop beneath him was dizzyingly long. But he gave none of it a thought.

This quality of shield... it would have a generator nearby. It would _have_ to be nearby, which meant...

He fixed his gaze on the turbolift capsule—the metal frame around it. And sitting snug atop it...

Luke closed his eyes. Felt for the generator. It hummed and whirred—not in the Force, but he didn't need the Force to tell him how to work machines. He found the switches, found the failsafes, the overrides, and...

Switched them off.

The whirring died. The shield vanished.

He grinned, and swooped in.

He could see most of Falynn's living area directly under his feet, through the transparisteel, under the artificial light of Coruscant that blocked out most stars.

It was all sharp angles and strange shapes he was unfamiliar with. Chairs rather than sofas, with a table next to each one, and patterns on the carpet that looked hauntingly familiar.

Luke didn't know much about the Arkanis sector—apart from the fact that he'd wheedled out of his father exactly _once_ that Tatooine was his homeworld, was where Obi-Wan Kenobi had been trying to take Luke before Vader had found him, and Luke had researched _everything_ he could about the place in response—but he did know that they were... unique.

The Regency Worlds were bound together by their monarchy, their empress, even if they _were_ allied with the Empire. But what had the Emperor involved these worlds in that was so secret it had to be hidden away from the prying eyes and delicate sensibilities of the Core? Arkanis was home to an Imperial academy; was that it?

He crept along the skylight, hating the way the transparisteel curved under his feet, feeling like he was about to slip any second. He didn't. He got to the turbolift, and... well.

Hit the button to summon it.

It chimed, and he stepped in quickly, closing the doors behind him instantly. He watched his speeder bike vanish behind them, his backpack heavy on his back, and wondered why he felt so cold.

He closed his eyes, and stretched out his senses.

There were one... two... shavit.

There were five guards milling about. A few of them had tensed when they heard the turbolift engage, but done nothing; perhaps it wasn't _unusual_ for this to happen, for Falynn or an aide to take a midnight look up at the stars if they couldn't sleep, but still. They were well-trained, they were dedicated, and the moment they clapped eyes on him there would be hell to pay.

So before they did, he felt their minds with the Force. Thought of what Leia had done to him at the academy, when he'd stayed up too late stressing over an exam or letting himself get too distracted to sleep. There was... a part of the mind, and a suggestion that worked on it—

They slumped to the floor, unconscious.

When the turbolift stopped, the doors opened on a corridor littered with two unconscious guards, wearing the teardrop emblem of Falynn's family, he assumed. He peeked into the living room he'd noticed under the skylight; there was one unconscious there, too. He peered further down the corridor, tiptoed after his gaze, and around the corner.

There were two more guards. One was unconscious in front of a closed door, the gentle, calmed presences behind it telling Luke that that was Falynn's bedroom. Her study would probably be in there; near to where she slept, in her personal quarters, and close enough that the guard could protect both at once.

But the fifth guard was slumped outside a seemingly innocuous painting further down the hallway.

It... did not fit the style of the rest of the apartment. The rest of the apartment was alien but familiar in a weird way; it felt to Luke like a home he'd half forgotten. That painting—twin paintings, in fact, of Emperor Palpatine and Empress Reeya, garish, done in stark blacks and red and blues and golds respectively—did not suit the decor _at all_.

And yet they warranted their own guard.

So he went up to them, and felt around the frames.

There was a latch. Right to the left of Reeya's right hand—a hand which held... what looked like a lightsaber, whatever the symbolism of that was. He flicked it, and—

The _wall_ swung inwards.

He gaped.

But not for long. The wall—made of something lighter, thinner than the other walls, he now realised; a _door_, a secret door—swung inwards to reveal a room in darkness, whose lights came on the moment he stepped forwards. A computer terminal, a desk, a row of shelves stacked thick with datapads and flimsi books...

Exactly what he needed.

He stepped in, and let the secret door close behind him.

"Project Harvester," he muttered to himself. He doubted there were cameras in here—one did not go to all the effort of hiding a place only to then tape every moment of interaction inside that place—but he kept his voice a whisper nonetheless, his mask still firmly in place. He crept forwards, and tried to access the computer.

Project Harvester. Project Harvester...

It bleeped. A password was needed; of course. He could crack it if need be, but that would take longer than he felt comfortable with, and he didn't know how long it would take for the guards to wake,

So he tracked his gaze across the shelves, and froze.

Could he be so lucky?

Could Falynn be so arrogant in her security that she'd really just leave a datapad and a box of datachips labelled _Project Harvester_ on her _shelf_?

He supposed that was what Imperials were like.

Very, very carefully, he reached up to grab it, bringing his heels back down lightly to mask any sound. There wasn't much in the file—just three datachips, labelled _Erialus_, and a datapad. He switched on the datapad; that asked for a password as well.

He was sure the Rebellion would have people who could crack it, once he got it to them.

He glanced around the office He could probably find more information in here. He _knew_ he could find more information in here. Things that could sever the ties between the Regency Worlds and the Empire for good, things Leia and their mother would've known how to wield, but Luke did not.

But it was not Leia or his mother here.

And it was not them who had to escape before the guards woke up.

So he just palmed his stolen datachips. Shoved them _and_ the datapad into his backpack. And then he skedaddled.

Out of the secret room. Down the corridor...

To where one of the guards was already pushing himself to his feet.

His eyes blew wide when he spotted Luke. "Hey, you—"

Luke dove into the turbolift at the same time as he _smacked_ him with the Force. The man flew back with an _oomph_; the turbolift doors closed and Luke sighed a deep breath, heart jack-hammering in his chest—

The lift rocketed upwards but he didn't dare relax, not for a second. He could sense the commotion below, hear them shouting through the metal walls of the lift, but the doors were opening, _thank the Force_, and then—

And then—

And then they stopped.

Overridden.

He jerked his head up. No, no, no, no—

He got his hands into the gap—it was about as wide as his palm, nowhere near narrow enough for him to fit through—and _yanked_ and _yanked_ and _yanked_—

There were boots pounding on emergency stairs. No. No, this wasn't how it was going to end, he wouldn't let it end this way, being caught and unmasked and—

—_dragged in front of his father and having to explain all of this_—

—_NO._

The Force barrelled out of him in a wave and the doors _buckled_.

He cringed bodily at the sound, the vibrations of that _screech_, that tear, that horrible, horrible, _horrible_ scream of metal—but—

The doors buckled outwards like a bomb had hit them. Like they were lips, or the metal petal of some folded flower, or—

There was no time for this.

The boots were still on the emergency stairs; there was the beeping of key cards, of permissions denied and granted, and he lunged through the gap his outburst had left.

He hit the domed skylight hard and _rolled_, automatically, planting both his hands flat on the transparisteel to desperately try and stop himself.

He scrambled to his feet. A stun bolt soared at him. He rolled again, dodging, then got up again and dived for his bike.

He'd barely slung one legs over it, his backpack bouncing on his back, before he gunned the throttle and sped off into the night.

* * *

They gave chase. Of course they did. But Luke lost them easily; the chaos of Coruscant was his friend. It was the Empire's enemy.

He retrieved the diamonds and the jester's hat and everything else he'd stolen that night—it had been a _long night_—and hid them somewhere closer to home again, along with the datachips and pad. Then once he got home, he blasted himself with water in the fresher for two minutes—the longest he'd let himself—then crawled into bed as the sun came up.

When his father came to check on him, he did not wake—just kept snoring on, blissfully unaware of where, exactly, his father was headed.

* * *

Vader slept poorly that night. He was constantly bombarded by panic, by fear, by exhilaration; he dreamt he was flying, but the speeder wouldn't turn left when he wanted it to and then he flew too fast and Padmé—or was it his mother?—tipped out of the left door and he couldn't turn to save her—

He woke with a start, grumpy but almost grateful to the insistent chime of his comlink.

_"My lord," _said the breathless aide with an Outer Rim accent that had him instantly scowling. _"I regret to interrupt you, and extend my deepest apologies—"_

"Get to the point," he growled. "My patience is not infinite."

_"Of course, my lord. My lady,"_ the man swallowed, _"Senator Falynn of Arkanis has reported a break in to her Coruscanti residences—she suspects it was the Rebel thief, Angel. They have stolen important data on Project Harvester."_

If Vader had still had eyebrows, he would be raising them. "Project Harvester?" The Inquisitors—their scheme to train Force-sensitive younglings? That seemed... odd for Angel to go after.

But then—

_"One of the guards reported having some... unknown power used on him, which my lady believes may have been the Force."_

Angel was Force-sensitive, after all. And Vader supposed that that program was in the interests of _every_ Force-sensitive not under Imperial jurisdiction.

And even the Force-sensitives who _were_ under Imperial jurisdiction... Vader swallowed. No matter nightmares about speeders and falling; too many of his nightmares had been about what if Obi-Wan had escaped with Luke, and the Inquisitors had found him and taken him to Arkanis before Vader had.

"I will be there shortly," he boomed, "to inspect the place."

He dropped into Luke's room to check on him first. His son was sound asleep, his hair and pillow damp—had he showered before going to bed again? That was like him. He'd have a stiff back in the morning...

Vader turned and left, heart clenching as tightly as his fists. The sooner he caught Angel, the better.

The sooner he caught Angel, the sooner Luke could be safe.

But as he went through Senator Falynn's residence, and inspected the impressively powerful blow dealt to her turbolift... as he went through Tseen and Thanas and Anchal's residences where break ins had been reported and combed for clues there... as he went through Senator Erialus's to a backdrop of a squawking senator and on-edge guards...

"They _stole_ my _chandelier_!" Erialus was shouting at anyone who would listen. Vader had to admit to being amused by that; it would've been the showiest thing in the room, and possibly the most expensive, and maybe even the most difficult to steal. Whoever Angel was, they had a wicked sense of humour.

But as he turned to look at the white _tooka_ sprawled all over the sofa, leaving white fur all over the floor and Vader's cape... he didn't think he had much to go on for catching Angel at all.


	14. The Gallery

**The references to the fate of King Lee-Char and Mon Cala are from the _Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith_ comics, and everything else wordbuilding in this chapter I either made up or stole from Wookieepedia.**

* * *

Despite the fact that he'd squeaked into his room shortly before sunrise the previous night, it was not yet noon when Luke found himself dragging his sorry body out of bed again and hopping on one of his many speeders—_not_ his speeder bike, lest someone recognise it so soon after last night—to go and meet Han at their usual place. He was getting dangerously comfortable navigating the network of Coruscant by now: there were always more routes to take, always side alleys cleared away and blocked up and cleared away again, and by now he had challenged himself to never arrive at his destination by the same route twice.

However, it did mean that it had taken longer for him to arrive than it usually did. And there was already one Han Solo, sans Chewbacca, waiting for him at the shelter. (Nursing a scratched hand and glaring at the street tookas viciously.)

"Han," Luke greeted warmly, hoping that a blinding smile might hide the bags under his eyes. "It's nice to see you. I have—"

"I wish I could say the same." Han raised a belligerent eyebrow, and Luke suddenly registered the... _anger_ he felt in the Force. The betrayal, almost, and he swallowed. "Kid—"

"What's wrong?" Luke climbed out of the speeder and started striding across the dusty, empty room towards him. Was it about that bounty hunter who was on Han's tail again? Had she decided to accelerate her deadline? "If it's even more money troubles, trust me, I've got some stuff here that _needs_ to go to the Rebellion but there's also—"

"You're the _Imperial prince_!?"

Luke froze. Han's raised voice echoed in the rafters and the large room they were in—what would have been the entrance chamber to the shelter, some individual rooms, all merged together by collapsed walls into one—and he winced at the repetition. _Prince, prince, prince_.

Then he laughed bitterly. The universe really wasn't being kind to him, at the moment. He supposed it was partly his own fault.

"You saw the announcement? That..."

"I saw the _holo_. Don't you dare try to pull anything on me, Luke, that was _definitely_ you. You've been lying to me this whole time."

"I haven't been lying," Luke said, vaguely affronted. It was a good way to distract from the official problem here. "You knew that I didn't want you to know who I really was, because it would be a danger to us both. Well, now you know why."

"Because _the prince of the Empire_ is secretly the Rebel thief working to bring them down?"

"I wasn't a prince then," Luke said petulantly. "Barely am now—I'm still..." He sighed. "Nothing's happened yet, and I don't know what's _going_ to happen."

"Well, Your Worship, be sure to let me know when you find out." Luke hated that sarcastic grin on Han's face—hated that _title_.

"Don't call me that," he grumbled. "Leia—"

"You're both royalty now!"

"Shut up." He ground his teeth. His sister was a princess. He'd never considered how much he'd hate being a prince. "This isn't what I came here for—I'm getting enough of this from Leia and my father. I brought—"

"Your _father_. That's another thing you never thought to mention." Han shoved his hands so deep into the pockets of his trousers Luke thought they'd be swallowed whole. "Your old man is..."

"Don't."

"..._Darth Vader_?"Han whistled. "I didn't think he was..."

"_Don't!_"

"...y'know. Human."

"He's human alright," Luke snapped. "And powerful, and overbearing, and if he _ever_ found out about this..."

Han's eyes widened then, and he seemed to shift, like he hadn't considered that before.

"Y'know, I can't see Vader offering mercy," he said, "for treason."

Luke swallowed. No. Neither could he.

Even if his father loved him, even if he told him time and time again that Luke was his entire galaxy, if he thought Luke had betrayed him...

Neither could he.

"I don't expect it," he said.

"You hate your father that much?"

Luke scoffed a laugh. "I love my father."

Han stared.

Luke shifted where he stood—opened and closed the bag of loot to distract himself. "It's complicated."

"Clearly."

"I love my father!" he burst out. "Okay? He's— he's a good father, and he loves me. But I hate the Empire, I hate everything it does, I hate the Emperor and I hated the academy and _I want to make a difference against it_. No matter who my father is."

He took a deep breath. "So here. There's a fancy expensive bejewelled jester's cap in there—sell it and it ought to get you a decent chunk of credits. Or keep it; Leia said she thought it would suit you." He tossed the bag over to Han, who caught it and scowled. "And there's a lot of diamonds off a chandelier. Just make sure the datachips and the datapad get to the Rebellion; that's the information we need."

Han still wasn't saying anything. Just staring at Luke.

"Y'know, Vader only started hunting Angel recently. A week and a bit ago. Heard he was in the Outer Rim before that."

Luke turned away, blinking hard. "Yes. On Ryloth."

"You've looked like shavit every time I've seen you since then."

"Yes."

Han looked uncomfortable. "You— you alright, kid?"

"Yeah." Luke squared his shoulders. "I'm fine."

"'Cause you really don't look it—"

"I'm _fine_."

"I told Chewie to stay behind today while I confronted you 'bout this," Han said. "He's pretty angry about the deception."

"I know, and I'm sorry, but it was necessary—"

"No, no, I understand now, kid. I don't understand why _you_, of all people in the galaxy would _want_ to be doing this, but I understand the situation you're in 'cause of it." Han grimaced. "Anyway. Chewie's not here right now, so you can't hear it from him too, but believe me when I say that this goes for the both of us."

Something drew Luke's gaze back to Han, then. The dim light and shadows on his face, his intense hazel stare.

"If you ever want out," he said quietly. "If— if you still need to leave. I get now that _might_ be a little hard when your dad's _Darth Vader_—"

"I love my father. I don't want to leave him."

"You're gonna have to eventually. Even if he never finds out about... _Angel_," he gestured around at them, hand splayed, "you gotta leave him eventually, junior. That's life." He shrugged. "I'm just saying. We'll take you on when you do, if you want."

"You'll take on the Imperial prince?" Luke said sceptically. He appreciated the sentiment, but... "If my treason becomes widely known, that'd put a target on your back even bigger than the one you've got now. And if it doesn't, you'd probably get accused of kidnapping."

Han said, "We'll figure it out. You're good in a fight. You're worth it."

Tears pricked. Luke stared.

"Thank you," he said. "I... thank you." He nodded. "And I promise we'll get your debts paid before that bounty hunter's deadline as well. That should go a long way towards it. We can do it."

Han took a step forwards. "Don't worry about me, Luke. That's Chewie's job. Worry about yourself." He punched him in the shoulder. "Don't make Her Highnessness do it all."

Luke laughed wetly. "Thank you. I—" He gasped, suddenly, when there were large arms encircling him, but he clung to Han like he was drowning and returned the hug with vigour, burying his face in his chest.

Between Han and Leia, he thought, tears streaming down his face, he was so lucky when it came to his friends.

"I'm sorry I dragged you into this," he whispered.

"Nah. I'm sorry I pick pocketed a lonely teenager one day who was too chatty for his own good."

"You still owe me twenty credits."

Han squeezed him tighter. "I owe you a lot more than that, kid."

After a moment, he let go again. Ruffled Luke's hair; Luke swatted his hand away with a scowl. "Take care of yourself. The Imperial Academy was full of vipers. I bet court will be worse."

"Thanks for the reminder," Luke said wryly.

"You're smart. But you ain't cut out to be one of them."

Okay, this was getting less encouraging as they went on. "Yes..."

"Don't be offended, kid, it's why I like you. But you'll do great." He punched his shoulder again.

Luke laughed, but rubbed the spot of the punch; that had been hard. "Glad you think so."

"You're not how I imagined Vader's kid would be—"

"I get that a lot."

"—and if you need a break from the politicians, we're still here."

Luke nodded. "I imagine you've... still got questions."

Han pursed his lips. "Yeah," he said. "I do."

"Can they wait?"

Han nodded. "I guess." He... hovered awkwardly, unsure what to do now. They looked each other in the eye for several long seconds before Luke broke the contact. "You gotta go now?"

"Before my father gets suspicious."

"Right." Han stuck his hands back in his pockets, the sack thumping against his leg. "Your father."

Luke smiled for a moment. "You get used to the idea," he said. "Leia did."

Then he climbed into his speeder.

Just as he sped away, he had to laugh over hearing Han mutter, "Leia. _Leia_ befriended _Darth Vader's_ kid!?"

* * *

He got home, sure enough to an irate, anxious father—but not for the reasons he expected.

Certainly, there _was_ a mention of, "There was another Angel attack last night, against several senators, and so far I have not found any conducive leads to who it might be."

But that was good—that was something Luke could weather, listening gratefully as he shut the door to the garage and stripped off his gloves, wiping engine grease off his face. The issue was...

"And," Vader told him, hesitating when he turned to full on face Luke in the door to their living room, hands knotted behind his back... "The Emperor commands your presence."

Luke's day immediately got infinitely worse.

"Why?" he asked bluntly, walking straight for the 'fresher. He washed his hands briefly before striding back out to his father's unamused stare.

"Why?" he echoed. "You are the Imperial prince and you are asking _why_ your Emperor wants to speak to you? He hasn't since the announcement."

"And I don't want to speak to him," Luke shot back, gracefully seating himself on the sofa, kicking his shoes off and kicking his legs up, "since the announcement."

Vader snorted. "You have not wanted to talk to him for much longer than that, son."

"True." Luke had to concede the point. "But the point stands."

"_No one_ wants to talk to the Emperor. He revels in it. But this is something you have to deal with, if you are going to be the prince. You will deal with the court, you will deal with the Empire, and you will _deal with him_."

Luke kicked his legs back off the sofa, to plant them solidly on the carpet and _glare_. "I never wanted to be prince."

"I am aware. We have had this conversation. But you must. It is your destiny."

Yes. They had had that conversation.

For a moment, Luke thought back to the previous night—talking to Leia, about what he could do, about where he wanted to go from here. He wasn't going to leave. He wasn't going to join the Rebellion, or join Han. He was going to stay.

Which left him, unfortunately, with very few options.

_It is your destiny_, Vader claimed.

Luke didn't know what his destiny was, but he was fairly sure it involved helping people. It had to.

And considering the influence he might have as Imperial prince, he reminded himself, how much he _could_ help people in that way... perhaps his father was right.

But not in the way he meant.

"Alright," Luke said. "I'll meet with His Wrinkled—"

He froze. His father was looking at him, amused.

"—Highness," he finished belligerently, meeting his gaze with a twitch to his lips.

All his father said, amused, was, "The correct title for an emperor is _Imperial Majesty_, Luke, not Highness."

* * *

"Your Imperial Majesty," Luke greeted as the servant led him into the lavish room, bowing to Palpatine. He was seated on a richly decorated armchair, amidst richly decorated trinkets: old, valuable oil paintings hung on the walls; the windows were large and rimmed in mahogany, providing a stunning view of the Coruscanti skyscrapers; the carpet was thick and lush. Palpatine beamed at Luke when he entered, revealing all his yellow teeth, and waved him into the armchair that sat on the other side of a small, stately table from him.

"You are aware that your father is hardly an expert on noble titles himself, my boy?" Palpatine said the moment Luke seated himself, feeling... almost on edge in the way the man seemed to _crackle_ in the Force. "_Your Imperial Majesty_. It is important for you to understand them, as prince, certainly, but do know that I am hardly picky about what I am called, so long as it contains the appropriate _respect_." His closed one gnarled hand around the head of his cane and thudded it against the floor to punctuate the word.

Luke—for whom _disrespect of Imperials, particularly his father and the Emperor_ was a middle name—felt very threatened.

"You may call me _Majesty_, _Imperial Majesty_, _Excellency_, _Highness_..." Palpatine blinked slowly, tilting his head as he regarded Luke. "Or, I _did_ request that you call me _master_."

He had. He had done that. Luke had forgotten.

"Apologies, master," he corrected himself, the name like ash on his tongue. "I meant no disrespect."

"I know you didn't, my boy." He chuckled lowly. "Which is why I have no problem with it."

Luke was fairly sure there was a _for now_ hanging in there somewhere. He swallowed.

"Now," Palpatine said. "I am sure you have questions for me, my prince."

_My prince_. It sounded awful.

"Yeah. I do."

"_Yes_, I do."

"Yes." Luke bit down on his rage. "Why?"

Palpatine raised an eyebrow and reached for... some sort of sweetmeat that was on the table. Luke didn't trust it. It seemed like every time Palpatine tried to talk to him, he tried to bribe him with sweets like a child. "Why, Luke? What do you mean?"

"Why make me prince?" Luke said baldly. "Master," he added, and... yeah, there wasn't much respect in it.

Palpatine... let it slide. For now. "Because you are intelligent, and powerful, and an ideal candidate. You told me yourself you were looking for _direction_ with your life. I was only all too happy to provide it. My Empire needs you, my boy," he used his spare hand to rest it on Luke's shoulder; Luke, by sheer force of will, did not tense up, "and I think that you need it, more than you know."

Luke lifted his chin. "I am no politician, master."

"Nonsense. You have your mother's spirit." Luke really, really hated that Palpatine knew he could get to him so easily with his mother's memory—make him flush with pride at a simple comparison—but he _could_, and it worked. "And you play word games in our chats quite beautifully. It's a joy to speak to you. You will be phenomenal."

Luke needed to stop being so charming. "I am undeserving of this honour, master. If the Empire needs a prince, or if you need an heir, then there are countless other Imperial youths who would better suit—I can already name—"

"If you are going to name the Princess Organa, or any of your friends from the Academy, I must stop you there. I do not want them. They were not raised by my most trusted, loyal lieutenant. They are not as trusted and loyal as you." Luke's mind flicked to a loyal Imperial like Zev had been, then to his own rebellious activities, and barely stifled a snort. "They do not suit. It has always had to be you, child."

_Great_. "I... am not ready." His father wasn't going to talk Palpatine out of it, so all Luke could do was talk him out of it. If he even wanted to. His decision to spy, to be the propaganda face of both sides of the war, was unsteady in his chest and these word games danced in circles, shaking and flaking the mortar around it. "Majesty, I—"

"Nonsense. I have already listed all the reasons I want you as my heir—ideally, I could begin to train you in the Force as soon as possible as well. I do so enjoy your company."

_Why?_ Did he just enjoy keeping the company of those who hated him? That might explain why he kept Luke's father around...

"I understand you have reservations about your new role. That is only natural; it has been many years since I first stepped onto the political stage, but I myself had fears, doubts... As is the nature of the dark side, I used that fear, and the anger that accompanied it, to make me stronger." He swallowed a sweetmeat neatly, then his hand contorted around his cup, the deep red liquid inside it trembling. For a moment, Luke wondered if it was blood. "I recommend, if you are afraid, that you do the same."

"I'm not afraid!" Luke defended. "I..."

Palpatine hummed with satisfaction.

Then he put the cup down. "Come. I would spend more time with the boy who is to rule over my legacy when I am gone, and we must discuss important matters—there will be a gala in a few days to formally introduce you to the court and the galaxy. Everything must be planned: your clothing, your appearance, the food..."

Luke already had a headache.

Palpatine laughed at the expression on his face. "You will come to enjoy these sorts of things—if you ask your father, I'm sure he will tell you that your mother did, too, as much as she stressed. Though Anakin certainly bore the brunt of her panic when things seemed to go wrong." Luke blinked at the use of _that name_, his father's old name, but Palpatine was already moving on. "She was a dearly beloved protégée to me—I am sure that you will prove the same."

Luke eyed the cup laid out next to him; it was definitely some sort of fine wine, or spirit. He took a large gulp.

"I will... endeavour to, master," he said. "I will try not to disappoint."

Palpatine brushed his thumb against his cheek. Luke pointedly leaned back, and watched the storm clouds roll across Palpatine's face at the motion—but he dropped his hand. So, he was willing to play this game.

The challenge was probably what he found so fun about it.

"Oh, believe me, young Skywalker," Palpatine chuckled. "You won't." He rose from his seat in a swirl of black robes and... _imperiousness_, looking down at him once he was standing. "Now, I saw you appreciating the artwork on my walls earlier. Would you care for a tour of my personal gallery? It has several paintings from our shared homeworld of Naboo—and I am sure you would appreciate some of the things my collection has to offer. It will be a good way for us to spend time together."

Luke drank down the rest of the cup before setting it back on the table, a little too forcefully.

"Of... course," he gritted out. "It would be my pleasure."

* * *

Luke had gone to visit the Emperor without too much of a fight, Vader tried to tell himself. That was a good sign, correct? That must be a good sign.

But he shouldn't dwell on it—not now, when he had a job to do, and a report to listen to.

"So," he snapped, before Aphra's hologram had even finished materialising. "What have you uncovered?"

_"Not much,"_ she admitted, far too chirpily for such a statement. _"There isn't much to be found, boss. I've got a compilation of all the rumours and chitchat I've heard about it—there's always a grain of truth in that—but I haven't investigated any further just yet. It'd help if you could send me something."_

"I... do not have much to send." It killed him to admit it, but it was true—and the precise reason he'd hired her in the first place. "There was yet another Angel attack this previous night; I am sending you authorisation to accompany me to investigate the scene."

_"Aww, boss. You're letting me play with the big guns now?"_

"Pray that your observations therein are more pertinent than the observations you make here."

_"I'll do my best. Is there anything you can already tell me about Angel that's not classified?"_

"He stole a respected senator's chandelier, and a slightly less respected senator's ornamental hat."

_"So he's got taste and likes picking on senators he dislikes. So do most Imperials—well. Maybe not on the taste part."_

Vader snorted... but that was an idea. "You believe Angel is a spy in the Empire? An Imperial?"

Aphra shrugged. _"He broke into IMH. He seems to know and move through most Imperial cordons easily—and clearly, he knows Coruscant. My bet would be someone involved—maybe someone young, based on the simple fact we've never seen anything like this before; an academy student or maybe the child of some senator, noble or moff. Or a young stormtrooper or pilot stationed on Coruscant—it'd have to be someone who knows the terrain."_

"So not someone who returned from the Academy recently," Vader noted. That eliminated all of Luke's classmates, so he couldn't ask his son for his input about them—though he supposed he could always ask Luke's input on everything else. His son was smart; perhaps there was an angle here that neither Aphra nor Vader was considering. "Someone in the Imperial armed forces, you suspect?"

_"Someone who knows the Empire, is both physically and mentally skilled, Force-sensitive, and very familiar with Coruscant," _she confirmed, _"yes. Does that narrow it down?"_

It did. A lot.

It narrowed it down to impossibility.

Any member of the Imperial forces, especially someone who'd been serving on _Coruscant_ for a few years, would have been vetted and caught if they were Force-sensitive. While the caveat that Angel was clearly _intelligent_ eliminated a good chunk of the troops from consideration... there were still, simply—

He sighed just thinking about it.

It narrowed the number down from the trillions of people who lived and breathed and suffered on Coruscant, yes. To a few thousand, instead, who lived and breathed and suffered and served the Empire on Coruscant. None of whom ought to be Force-sensitive... and yet, one was. And one was powerful or trained enough to avoid detection.

Angel was slowly but steadily racking up the urgency of their situation. A skilled, knowledgeable Force-sensitive, in the Empire, for several years... It got worse and worse.

They probably already knew about Luke. There was no keeping Luke away from _them_—especially now that his son was the Imperial prince.

Who were they? A senator's child—a senator themselves? (Vader took a moment to imagine a borderline Rebel such as Organa taking to petty thievery for her cause; the image was absurd. She was hot-headed, true, and likely _would_ sink that low, but he doubted she had the strength or skill in any of the above categories to succeed.) A stormtrooper? A pilot, honoured enough to serve the elite garrisons that defended the capital?

Why would a member of the Imperial forces who had come so far, received so much adulation for their work, want to throw it all away in service of the Rebellion? What had poisoned their heart against the Empire that had given them so much?

He didn't know.

He was going around in circles.

Aphra's suggestions both narrowed it down and left far more questions that had no answers.

"You will meet me at my residence at first light tomorrow," he ordered, "and you will accompany me to inspect Senator Organa's residences. She was one of the places hit."

_"Organa? Isn't she—"_

"Yes. Apparently this thief does not discriminate between Rebel sympathisers and Imperial hardliners." Of course, it was entirely likely that this was intentional, to stop the Empire from suspecting Organa had anything to do with it. Or perhaps she had information they needed the Rebellion to get, and the most efficient way was for Angel to 'steal' it from her. Or perhaps she was, in fact, an innocent bystander who'd been every bit as enraged as she'd seen that morning.

Vader doubted it. She was a politician. He didn't trust politicians—and the Organas were some of the best.

Like father, like daughter, in that respect.

He would interrogate her in more depth later—perhaps she was personally acquainted with Angel, knowingly or unknowingly; she might have been hit out of personal rather than political reasons. Let it never be said that Rebels were _rational_.

"After we have inspected her residence, we may have to inspect some of the other targets. You will accompany me there, also. Any observations you make are welcome, if pertinent..." She opened her mouth. "...and _polite_."

She closed her mouth.

_"Good day, Lord Vader,"_ she said, mostly sarcastically, but with a little salute to top off the performance.

Vader sighed.

* * *

"This, my boy," Palpatine said, "is a collection I've been gathering since you were born."

Luke stared down the corridor, hyperaware of the yellow gaze not on the art, but on his face. Of the red guards at his back, lest they try to run. They were meant to protect the Emperor, but they served Palpatine's will first and foremost, and he had no doubt that they would take no umbrage at chasing down a prince who'd decided to bolt.

Force. He was a prince.

Was he gonna get his own contingency of red guards too, now? He hoped not. Stars, he hoped not.

"It's... lovely," he tried. It wasn't a lie. It _was_ lovely—some of the finest oil paintings from Naboo, the water paintings from Mon Cala, the artful tree bark decorations and growths from Kashyyyk and all sorts of others... He stared around; there was more colour here than there was in the entirety of the Empire, it seemed, if you were excluding Luke's own wardrobe from that count.

But these paintings had been stolen.

"I collected them painstakingly over many years," Palpatine said, and Luke restrained himself from clenching his fists. He was not that unsubtle. At least, he hoped he wasn't. "This Alderaanian moss painting"—he gestured to an image of what Luke recognised as Appenza Peak and the royal palace in Aldera, from what he'd seen of it during a visit to Leia in the holidays once—"was a gift from your dear friend's father, I believe. I mentioned to him that I admired it on a visit there fifteen years ago—it was already a pleasant visit, what with getting to meet his lovely wife and daughter for the first time in person, but his generosity in relinquishing it to me out of the goodness of his heart was a highlight, certainly."

Luke was going to be sick. He thought he knew what might have happened there—what, or _who_, Bail had desperately been trying to protect when he'd made such a gift.

"This one, meanwhile," Palpatine continued, turning to the Mon Calamari water painting. Luke narrowed his eyes at it in thought—it looked just like blobs of various inks on an uneven canvas of white and grey seashells, to him, red and blue and green threads of colour winding through it to illustrate a spherical shape, a bubble, of some kind. "This was done for me personally, as I was such supporter of their culture, and particularly their aquatic ballet. King Lee-Char had it commissioned for me; it's a scene from an opera he knew I particularly liked."

Luke didn't want to think about what the Empire—what _his father_—had done to King Lee-Char and Mon Cala. He'd been extremely young when it had happened, but he still remembered his father coming home, Luke asking tentatively where he'd been and then with more vigour, not stopping until he'd heard the story...

At the time, he'd been focused on the Jedi, how his father had fought the people who would have stolen Luke away from him, if they'd had their way. He'd enjoyed it.

He'd realised with a punch to the gut how horrifying the story was once he got older.

"What is that? Master," he asked to distract himself, pointing at something over Palpatine's shoulder. It was a sculpture, of japor, but the flowing shapes and forms of it, some of the textures, looked familiar...

"Ah." Palpatine's lips curved into a smile as he watched Luke closely, and something... prickled in the Force. Along the back of his neck, along his spine itself, along his sixth sense. "That was part of a gift exchange with the Empress Leeya, of the Regency Worlds—I trust you learned about them in your studies?"

The Regency Worlds.

Arkanis.

Again.

What was this about?

"Of course, master," Luke said. Palpatine gave him a look and he parroted dutifully: "They're a group of worlds, ruled by one dynasty for years, with the throneworld Arkanis. They're model Imperial citizens, submit to your— _our_ laws with grace and eagerness, and in exchange they are granted with less taxation and more benefits to their citizens." He swallowed, the words bitter on his tongue. "They're a valuable ally of the Empire."

"That they are. But it took work to get to that point." He waved his hand at the sculpture. "This was a part of an exchange, of goodwill—she gifted me a beautiful piece of her homeworld from her own collection, and I gifted her a beautiful piece of mine from mine."

Luke's throat was dry. "Why foster good relationships with them in particular?" he had to ask, trying to be subtle. "They're in the Outer Rim. Out of the way."

"Of course. And I would never assume to give them _military_ or _political_ influence, but... Arkanis has its uses. It has some significant space faring connections. It was willing to subject to my rule without warfare, which was unfortunately a rarity in the strife that was the wake of the Clone Wars. And the very fact that it _is_ so loyal, and so out of the way, makes it ideal for hiding projects on that the Senate must not know about."

"You have secrets from the Senate?" Luke feigned surprise.

Palpatine laughed. "Of course, my boy. They are only a front—one day, we will be powerful enough that they can be done away with completely and this farce, this remainder of the Republic, can be swept away." He laid a hand on Luke's shoulder, and studied the sculpture for a few moments. "Arkanis, and the projects I have there, are just some of the things that will see us towards that end."

"There are others?"

"Of course. You and your training, I have to say, is perhaps the most important of them." Luke blinked at the dizzyingly fast shift of subject, and winced. "Your destiny will be a great one. But the future is always beholden to the past."

Luke frowned at him.

Palpatine smiled. "Your father... there are numerous holos and paintings and small statues of your mother, in existence. You have been to Naboo, to visit your family there; you know that. Your father was assigned to gather up some of the more rebellious or fake ones, but I have a collection here, if you want to see how much you can find out about the woman you never knew." Palpatine turned into a corridor off the right from the main one, his gait unfaltering. Luke's was not the same. "Your father wanted you to see them, when you were old enough, but he didn't want to look at them himself. So I kept them for him."

Luke blinked.

Palpatine... had a collection... of artwork... for his mother?

What did he use it for, other than keeping her image and name out of the public eye—out of the Rebellion's hands? Gloating, it had to be. Gloating over her death, and her husband's servitude? Gloating over the fact that she'd fought so hard to protect her Republic, only to fail, and die, and lose everything? Gloating over the fact that he even had her child in his grasp?

No.

There was only one of those thing Luke had any say in, but that thing he was shout about loud and clear: Palpatine would not control Padmé Amidala's child the way he controlled the husband. He would never bow to him. Neither would Leia.

They would continue the legacy Palpatine thought had been destroyed, reduced to worthless trinkets, gathering dust. They would make her proud.

It was their destiny.

"Thank you, master," Luke said. "But... I know my mother through the stories of people who knew her—Viceroy Organa, her family, my father... If you have any stories of your own you wish to share, I would be grateful. But I have no need to see trinkets."

Palpatine pressed his lips together tightly, before he regained his smile. Luke saw it. He didn't miss it.

"As you wish," he said. "I certainly have some tales about my time mentoring the young Queen Amidala—and then Senator Amidala!—that could entertain you..."

"But for now, I'd like to see the rest of your," _loot,_ "collection." Luke smiled toothily.

He would later _regret_ seeing the rest of Palpatine's collection—_"The intent of Lord Momin's work was exactly that: to inspire horror, hatred and disgust in the viewer, young Skywalker"_—thanks to some of the more disturbing pieces, but... he felt resolved, and proud of himself, all the same.


	15. The Ball

The days whipped past after that, lost and rushed in the scramble of getting Luke an outfit for the ball, forcing him to sit in front of an etiquette teacher for hours on end, recapping old dances he hadn't studied since he'd left for the Academy. His father was just as on edge, alternating between giving him repetitively dire but cryptic warnings and brooding around their apartment. Luke tried to ignore him—except the time when he stumbled into him standing in Luke's room, staring around slightly lost. Luke gave him a hug, then, they talked about what was coming, and Luke hoped it had assuaged Vader's fears more than it had assuaged his.

In every spare moment he had, Luke was in the hangar and workshop. Hiding.

It meant that his latest project, that speeder, was finished _very_ soon.

He took it into the shop as soon as possible. Trace had run that place a few hundred levels down for nearly five years now, and she was one of the best bosses to have on this side of the planet. He hadn't told her who he was when he first rocked up on the doorstep of her dinky little shop, even though her sister had dropped by a few weeks later and been _very_ interested in this sweet-spoken volunteer from Top Side. Luke hadn't wanted payment—something Rafa had been able to neither fathom nor trust, but what need did _Darth Vader's son_ have for credits? He had as much blood money as he required—but he _had_ clearly wanted Trace to teach him everything she knew about mechanics. The obvious exchange there had helped: Luke would be useful to Trace, Trace would be useful to him, and that was the solid deal they'd based their working relationship on.

Now, he drove right into the side hangar off the street, ducking under a large billboard that screamed the advertisement for a new cantina opening up a few levels down—_The Tipsy Nexu_ blared in painfully bright yellow next to a poor drawing of what Luke was pretty sure was actually a tooka, with a large blinking arrow pointed downwards carried in its mouth. At least it wasn't a news bulletin; he'd already flown past a few of them, emblazoned with meaningless declarations of a _ball that would introduce Prince Luke to the galaxy_ and a holo of his face larger than his father was tall. It was extremely awkward having to fly past those; all he could hope was that with his hair grown out much longer than in the Academy cut it was in that holo, the heavy editing to make him seem like _an appropriate prince_, and the soot and grime smeared on his face, _no one would recognise him_.

Angel was one thing. It would be less disastrous, but no less _mortifying_, if his true identity was discovered here, too.

Thankfully there were no customers in the ship. Trace had her goggles on in the front, the welding torch out, and the noise was familiar and deafening. Luke smiled as he dropped the speeder off on the platform and headed in.

"You've been away from a while," she shouted out over the noise. "I was expecting you back a week ago."

Luke huffed a careful breath, but there wasn't anything accusatory in her tone—yet. Han and Trace were very different, but they'd have similar reactions to calling him out on his true double life, he felt, so... that was a good sign...?

"I was busy," he couched, stripped off his jacket to leave him only in his tank top; it was hot in here and he had work to do.

"I can imagine," she said.

He froze, waiting with bated breath for her to elaborate, to say something more, to bust out the accusations...

And was left waiting in vain.

Trace switched off her welding tool; the blue flame vanished, she pulled up her goggles and grinned at him, white rings in the soot around her eyes. "There's a whole bunch more speeders like that, malfunctioning in the same way, if you're interested in doing another one. The company are scratching their heads. Drop it in the back and show me how you did it, then we'll be able to send it back to them twice as fast.

Luke breathed a sigh of relief. Her grin didn't falter.

"Of course," he said, relaxing enough to give her a grin of his own in response. "It was easy once I isolated the problem..."

* * *

Trace's shop had not changed. It was a solid space, a steadfast space; a _safe_ space. He was grateful for it, because the moment he returned home and had showered, his father and his worries descended on him again.

The ball was the next day; Luke slept poorly, restlessly, then slept too much. He woke to a sharp _poke_ through the Force, his father's nervousness—though of course he would never call it that to his face—so far through the roof it was out of atmo.

Luke, now regrettably awake, rolled over onto his front and thumped his pillow over his head.

_Get up._

_Ugh._

The door to his room whooshed open; Luke's face was buried in the mattress, but he could _feel_ the way his father filled the doorway like a massive mynock, chewing on all the annoying cables. "That was not negotiable."

"It's ridiculously early."

"Would that it was. You were _meant_ to awaken ridiculous early. You did not. It is now 0800 hours and you should get up _now_, or be dragged to the Palace in your pyjamas in order to oversee the preparations as you are meant to."

"Since when was _I_ meant to oversee _preparations_? I went to a military academy, not a technical college."

"You are prince. Your duties—"

"I have _duties_?"

"—yes, of course—your duties are to handles things that will reflect on your own image—"

"I never signed up for _duties_. I never signed up for princehood! I was perfectly fine having no _image_. Everything is easier that way." _Especially_ his more... _angelic_ activities.

"You are my son," Vader said baldly, "and the worthless of the galaxy love to gossip. You already have an image. This is just an opportunity to provide a clearer one, based on your own merits, rather than... than mine."

Luke swallowed. "Why did I need an image at all? No one guesses I'm your son. Why couldn't I keep living in anonymity?"

"Are you ashamed of me, Luke?" Vader asked quietly. There was no judgement, there; Luke knew, with a horrible certainty, that his father was expecting an affirmative.

That his father was ashamed of _himself_.

Luke paused. Swallowed again.

It wasn't fun, telling people who his father was—he'd seen the disgust in Leia's eyes, all those years ago; Han's reaction; Zev... well, Zev had been one of the few people to react well to it, but he hated everyone's reactions on principle. There was a fine line between awe and horror, hero worship and hatred, and he hated straddling it as carefully as he did. His father was his father. His father was Darth Vader.

"Of course not," he said earnestly. "But it's not fun when people at the Academy would gawk at me, expecting great things"—terrible things, sometimes, but... nonetheless awe-inspiring, unbelievable; _great_—"from me as they do from you, and expecting me to be..." He shrugged. "Someone I'm not.

"Like a _prince_," he added vehemently, shooting him a glare. "I'm _not_. I— I can't do what you do. I'm not you."

"No," Vader agreed. "You are not me. And I would not want you to be." He stepped forwards to... loom over Luke's bed, and rest a heavy hand on his mussed up hair. Luke leaned into the touch.

Then Vader said, "But, to get back to the topic at hand, your habit of sleeping in the mornings is far too similar to what I was like at your age."

Luke snorted. "That doesn't mean anything."

"It's a slippery slope, son."

"To _Sith Lorddom_?"

"A slippery slope," Vader repeated with humour. Luke groaned, rolled over, and chucked his pillow at him.

"Out," he demanded. "I'm getting up, I'm getting up."

"See that you are."

"I am!"

* * *

"You wear your outfit well," Vader told him when he was done.

Luke gave him a narrow look. He was wearing all black, shirt and trousers, with what seemed like several layers of _cape_; there was silver detailing in the cape's chain, on his quilted boots, at his belt, his buttons, his collar, but he felt distinctly like a void. "I don't know how to take that."

"You look nice," Vader amended. "Though your hair is scruffy."

He reached out a hand to flatten it but Luke batted it away. "It won't go any flatter."

"I know full well it will."

"It won't look any _better_ if it goes flatter."

Vader snorted and dropped his hand. "As you wish."

There was a silence for a moment.

"I know you do not want this," Vader said at last. "And..."

"And?"

He huffed. "If you truly decide that you loathe everything about being the prince, and wish to end it, then I will do my best to convince Palpatine to let you step down."

Luke... knew what that probably cost him. He smiled up at him, not caring that his eyes were glistening. "Thank you, Father."

"But I would like you to at least try it. I truly believe this is what's best for you." He rested his hands on Luke's shoulders, smoothing down the wrinkles in his fine shirt, then cupped Luke's cheek in his hand. "And never doubt that I am proud of you."

Luke leaned into his touch. "I know. And I know you worry about me—I just—"

"You need your freedom. That is acceptable." A pause, then he added, amused, "At least I can rest assured that in all probability, Angel will not be at the ball tonight."

Luke forced himself to laugh nervously.

"Yeah," he said, prying Vader's hand off his face and clinging to it with both of his. "Now let's go."

* * *

Luke had to just... stand around for much of the day, nominally overseeing preparations that could evidently have been perfectly completed _without_ his presence, but at least the hustle and bustle meant that the day passed quickly. The sun sank, the cityscape glittered beyond the vast windows, and the harsh white lights were swapped out for warmer, yellower ones. Luke watched from the second level of the ballroom, leaning against the railing, as guests filed in on the floor below. Some of them were chattering; some of them were deadly silent. Some were stiff-backed, some had impeccable posture, some moved comfortably; some kept their eyes fixed on where they were going as they walked stately in, while others gaped around, examining everything they could see.

A few gazes caught on Luke, high up on the second level next to a pillar, half shrouded by a black velvet curtain; he smiled and inclined his head to them politely.

Later, the ball was in full swing. Luke had been announced, the important introductions had all been made and people were dancing vigorously on the floor in swirling, looping circles. Luke had to spend much of the time that evening standing at the foot of the dais Palpatine's throne was on, listening and standing in on his idle discussions with various moffs and senators who approached, but he spent the rest of the time... socialising. Names and faces flickered by; he did his best to remember everyone who took his hand and engaged him in conversation, aware from some of his political studies who the truly influential families of the Empire were.

His poor feet in his boots were starting to ache, so he excused himself to the young man he was dancing with—a scion of a droid magnate, with family ties to Baron Danthe—and went to the long table of delicacies to the side, taking a drink and a moment to breathe.

"You look tired," an amused voice called. Luke would've jumped if he hadn't sensed him coming beforehand, and turned to face him with a warm look.

"You look uncomfortable," he shot back. Piett _did_. He was just wearing his dress uniform, but he looked _so stiff_, an eternal expression of faint disdain—as well as _confusion_—gracing his face. "Did my father force you to come?"

Piett chuckled. "I wouldn't miss your... introduction... to the court, Luke."

"You think I needed moral support."

"Well." He cast a knowing look around the place. "It's barely 2200 hours and you already look dead on your feet. Clearly you do."

Luke laughed, and raised his glass to clink against Piett's. "I do. Thank you for coming."

"I came with Max, in fact— speak of the Sith." Luke turned his head up to see Veers approach, towering over both Luke and Piett. "I wouldn't have had the courage to face the vipers without him."

"So you ditch me to immediately get drinks?" Veers shot back.

Piett just tapped his glass.

Luke smiled at Veers cordially. "I'm glad to see you here. I..." He swallowed. "I did talk to Zev, like you asked, though I'm not sure how much it helped."

"You did? Well, that's news to me. It hasn't helped much." Veers hesitated, then. "Thank you for doing it anyway. Zev is... he's... Yes." He clammed up again. "It hasn't helped much."

"Of course," Luke just said, and from the look Piett was giving Veers, the way he was opening his mouth to say something further, sensed he was no longer quite welcome in this conversation.

He still didn't want to dance with anyone—not at all. He raised his eyes above the crowd to search the alcoves along the far wall of the room, and there was a flash of red. He knew Mara was on... duty tonight—_bodyguard_ wasn't the right word; _watch duty_ was closer—so surely, surely the galaxy would grant him a break and let him just talk to her for a bit...

Not quite. He was waylaid by a senator just as he went.

"Prince Luke," she said charmingly; it was a moment before he placed her. Senator Hyadum, of Pantora. She had the blue skin and yellow eyes of all Pantorans, with vertical gold tattoos that crested her brow and her cheekbones, but her indigo hair was braided over her shoulders and the back of her head in a style unfamiliar to him. "Would you do me the honour of dancing with you?"

Luke resisted the urge to raise his eyebrows; Hyadum was not a _known_ Rebel sympathiser, but certainly a suspected one, and he wondered what interest she'd have in interacting with the newly appointed prince.

He could feel the weights of several gazes on him—Vader, Mara, Piett—possibly wondering the same thing, but he shook it off.

He had to be courteous, after all.

"Of course," he said, taking her hand and ignoring the way his feet groaned in protest at yet more movement as they stepped into the dance.

"You are a good dancer, Your Highness," she said to him, a little resentfully, though he would never have guessed that from her tone alone.

"Thank you," he replied. "It was never my _favourite_ thing, as it rarely is for eight year olds, but I was forced to attend classes for it anyway."

She humoured him and laughed. "They paid off."

"Was there a specific reason you wanted to dance with me, Senator?" Luke asked, shrewdly and bluntly. "You don't seem too fond of me, and I don't want to make you uncomfortable or feel obliged to."

She tensed up. "I had hoped to... discuss what you thought your policies and attitudes might be, as prince."

"In the middle of the dance floor? Even if I had had the time to grow accustomed to this role, enough that I could _have_ such plans, that wouldn't be an ideal place to do it."

"Well, if you'd prefer, I know there are several meeting places along the corridor just outside," she said stubbornly. "This is truly something that I do not want to be blindsided about—"

"And I promise that you won't be," he said, sincerely. She pinched her lips together. "If you wish, I can arrange a separate meeting for us to go over them—do you have a comlink frequency I could contact?"

She frowned. "Your Highness, I do insist..."

"I cannot come right this moment, I'm afraid."

"It is a matter of some urgency."

The song ended and he dropped her hand. "Thank you, Senator, but I need to go."

"Wait—"

"Luke." Another hand settled on his shoulder and he turned to Mara, who'd already grabbed his hand and... dragged him far away from Hyadum in some bastardised form of dancing. They were on the other side of the room by the time they stopped and _actually_ did the steps properly.

"That was abrupt," he mused.

"She knows I'm a bodyguard. She knows what that's about."

"What was it about?"

"She's under observation," Mara told him gravely. "As a suspected Rebel. If she was trying to get you to a secondary location..."

"I didn't sense any deceit from her."

Mara laughed. "That should've given it away, then. Politicians are _always_ deceitful."

"Fair enough."

"Though I admit I don't see the value of it," she mused. "It'd be pretty inglorious if you were to get kidnapped and assassinated now, I suppose, but you haven't even sat in on any meetings yet. You don't know anything of value." Her tone turned more cheerful. "Your job at the moment is just to be a pretty face."

"At least I know I'm doing my job well, then."

She flicked his arm. "Keep telling yourself that. But it's not like there are any projects whose secrets you could spill." They stopped dancing when the song ended and moved to the side of the room, next to an alcove, still conversing.

"So it's possible that that was a perfectly harmless conversation and you just dragged me away for nothing?"

"That's not what I said. It'd be a less tactically useful move to kidnap you now, _but_ it'd still be a show of force from the Rebellion." She chided, "You need to keep your eyes out."

"My father and you are already doing that better than I ever could, apparently."

"Doesn't mean you should get _lazy_, Your Highness."

He wrinkled his nose at the title and she laughed.

But... he figured...

"Besides, I know of a _few_ projects," he said carefully. "Project Aurora, Project Ion Ring, Project Harvester."

He watched her closely; she just snorted. "Project Harvester? Never heard of it. You're making those up."

He blinked.

She was telling the truth.

Whatever Project Harvester was, Mara had no idea.

"Alright," he conceded. "I was making that one up."

"I knew it."

She smirked. "See? Not much use." She poked him teasingly, and he yelped appropriately.

"Rude."

"It's the truth."

"That doesn't make it any less—"

He broke off when he sensed someone approaching him. He turned, and smiled at his sister.

The impression Leia gave off was nothing but akin to a sort of regal amusement. She was resplendent in white, as always, though she'd forgone the usual silver that she wore hints of for... gold. Her dress shimmered with faint gold detailing, and at the hems; her belt was thin and made of interlocking metal scales. She looked like an ancient warrior princess, complete with bands around her biceps and her hair coiled above her head perfectly.

When she turned, slightly, he choked to see that the patterning on her dress continued onto her back... in the shape of an angel's wings.

Leia had _so much nerve_.

"Do you mind if I dance with him?" she asked Mara, as his apparently assigned watcher. "As a princess to a prince?" She raised an eyebrow at Luke

Mara said, "Of course," and threw Luke another smirk.

Leia seized Luke's arm playfully and yanked him out onto the dance floor; Luke let himself be pulled and laughed with his sister, a stiffness he hadn't even realised was in his limbs melting into contentment as Leia took charge of the dance, far more assertive a princess than he could hope to be a prince. The music whirled around them, they followed the steps of the dance, and Luke just felt _relaxed_.

"Thank you," he said to her. "I've been dancing and interacting with strangers all night."

She smiled at him gently. "Mara has your back, I see. I'm just stepping in to help you out a little more."

He raised an eyebrow. "You know each other?"

"Of course. We used to bump into each other in the Palace corridors frequently. One time there appeared to be a threat on my life, and she was assigned to watch me."

Luke swallowed—he thought he might know what that had been about. It wasn't uncommon for Palpatine to invent fictitious plots on a senator so he could assign them a _watcher_.

"We've got along ever since," she finished, then frowned at him. "Are you alright, Luke?"

He just shook his head. "I feel exhausted."

"You _look_ exhausted. Whose idea was it to dress you up in black?" She scowled at his outfit. "You haven't been on a planet with proper sunlight since you left the Academy and it _shows_. You look sickly."

_"Thank you_, Leia, that might be the stress and sleep deprivation."

Her gaze softened. "You've had an interesting week, haven't you?"

_"Interesting_," he informed her, "is not the word I would use for it."

"Don't worry," she said softly. "This will all be worth it. Things will get better."

He spun her, as was the dance, and for a moment wondered what they looked like together: the fair-haired prince in black and silver, and the dark-haired princess in white and gold.

"How can you know that?"

"Because things always do," she said simply. "And you wouldn't be working so hard to make things better if you didn't believe it as well."

"I—"

They spun where they stood. Luke turned so he was facing towards Palpatine's throne and all words dried in his mouth.

The Emperor was watching him.

As he returned the gaze, Palpatine raised one crooked finger and beckoned him over.

The music came to an abrupt halt—at least, it seemed abrupt. Luke's moment of respite was over, so he just bowed to Leia, even as she curtseyed perfectly in response, an eyebrow raised at his sudden tension.

"Is it His Wrinkled Majesty?" she asked quietly. He nodded minutely—though he didn't fail to note that apparently, she'd been chatting to Han on comms recently.

He stepped away from her and forged his way towards the dais; he couldn't help noticing how though people approached him at first, they backed away as quickly as possible once they clocked where he was heading.

He reached the base of the dais, and... bowed, very low; he didn't outright _kneel_, couldn't bring himself to, and certainly not in front of so many people. But Palpatine seemed satisfied with that, as he waved a hand and gestured for him to rise, to stand next to his throne. Luke's father was standing dutifully on the other side of the dais, a few steps down; Luke could almost feel him straining to hear their conversation.

"You have done well, my prince," Palpatine praised him, taking his hand and folding it between his on the armrest of his throne. "This is a better introduction than I could hope for. You have been unfailingly charming, polite; the image of the Imperial prince the Empire needs. You even condescended to interact with more... rebellious senators, to keep up an image of a fair, just Empire."

_Image_.

Luke knew too well that this was just an _image_.

Well—at least if _keeping up a gentle image_ was what Palpatine wanted him for, then hopefully he wouldn't force Luke to do anything too... Imperial... during his time as prince...?

"Come." A holocam droid buzzed towards them; Palpatine smiled brightly into it, and Luke, kneeling at his side, hand still clasped by his, tried to smile too. _An image. Project an image._ "This is an excellent start, and we must continue it for as long as we can. There is going to be a meeting of all the heads of strategy for the Empire tomorrow morning; I would like you to attend, along with your father and I, so you may see the true state of the Empire as it is."

He sighed. "I'm afraid that when I say we need you, Luke, it is more true than you know. Lord Vader was in favour of shielding you from our weaknesses and recent failures, but you deserve to know the truth—how precarious this situation really is."

..._what_.

_What_ did _that_ mean?

"This... _situation_, Your— master?" he asked, correcting himself at the last minute. "You mean, with Angel—"

"Yes, now hush, child, we should not speak of it here." Palpatine's gaze narrowed on a spot of white in the crowd and Luke silently prayed— "Though your _friend_, Princess Organa, is not subtle about the message she is sending at this event."

His prayers went unanswered.

"Leia has had that dress for months, now," he offered. He knew it was true; he'd seen it in her senatorial residences. "I am sure it is just a coincidence—that she means no disrespect."

"Organa is clever enough to know when to avoid sending messages she does not want. And of all people in the Senate, she is the last person I would expect to avoid showing _disrespect_." Thankfully, Palpatine just sounded amused.

Good. Luke resisted the urge to let out a breath. His sister was safe.

"We will be finishing the event within the hour," Palpatine said. "You are required to stay to the end, as its main host, but I understand you will need to sleep properly tonight."

He patted his hand again—once, twice, thrice. His skin was cold, clammy, and... crusty; Luke's skin crawled.

"You will have a very long day tomorrow."

* * *

Vader watched Luke with nervousness the whole night, but although he looked too pale—that boy needed to look after himself properly—he navigated the waters well. Vader found himself smiling faintly at it; Padmé would be so proud, if she could see him.

Vader would just have to be doubly proud of him, in her absence.

But the ball was winding down, people were being ushered out, and now Luke's unfailing smile finally dropped from his face, exhaustion clouding it in its absence. He swayed slightly on his feet, his fine clothes all in disarray; Vader came up behind him to put a steadying hand on his shoulder. Luke didn't even flinch; just leaned into it.

"Come, Luke," Vader murmured. "You have done well. It is time to go home."

Luke nodded, smiling, forcing his eyes open from where they were drifting closed. "I'm coming."

Vader frowned.

When he cast out his senses, he could tell that almost all the senators, courtiers and moffs were already in their speeders, far down the corridor. He turned to the nearest guard. "Ensure that no one lingers."

He sensed the guard's confusion, but he leapt to obey.

Then Vader shifted his grip on Luke's shoulder, bent down in one fluid motion, faster than anyone would expect a man of his bulk to move, and picked him up.

"What—!" Luke's indignant exclamation cut itself off with a huff. "I'm... eighteen, Father."

"And you are tired."

"I can still _walk_."

Vader chuckled. "You do not have to."

Luke huffed again, then thumped his head to rest on Vader's breastplate, closing his eyes. That was a bad idea; he would _definitely_ fall asleep if he did that. But Vader didn't mind.

He could sense Luke's relief, at being finally off his feet.

He could _also_ sense his master's yellow gaze on his back, cold, calculating... but he ignored it. The holocams were gone, the guests were gone, and any who remained were _nothing_. Let the galaxy know that Luke was his weakness. Let people wonder about them.

People would already be targeting Luke. (He unconsciously clutched him tighter; the fact that Luke didn't react was what told him that he was well and truly asleep.) This would not change anything.

Palpatine, Luke's greatest threat, had known that this was his weakness from before Luke was even born.

Luke mumbled something in his sleep, shifting his head on Vader's shoulder, and Vader shifted to accommodate him. The corridors of the Imperial Palace wandered around him in a blur; for the first time, he did not feel boxed in by them. Nor did the memories of the Jedi Temple sour his mood.

And nor did the painting of Padmé hanging on the wall make his heart hurt nearly as much as it usually would.

"He's so much like you, Padmé," he murmured to it as they passed it. "You would adore him."

They reached their speeder and he settled Luke into the backseat, letting him lie still and peaceful, before flying back to their home. Carried him up the stairs, carefully removed his boots and his cape and the other accessories of his outfit, setting them on the chair in the corner, then lay him in bed with just that. Luke would wake up any moment, when he could undress himself, or he would sleep through until morning and gain some much needed rest, wrinkled clothes be damned.

Hopefully, it would be the latter.

Vader backed out of the room, flicking the lights off with the Force and shutting the door carefully behind him.

He was just heading for his meditation chamber when his comlink chimed.

He opened it—it was Palpatine. "Yes, master?"

Palpatine didn't waste time. His face was expressionless. _"Is the boy available?"_

Vader swallowed. "No. He is asleep."

That sent as much of a message as anything—Palpatine might still take that as _available_, might still demand that he wake him up. But Vader had made it perfectly clear that he would not.

Palpatine accepted it. _"Very well. You should know this as well. You are aware that he interacted with multiple suspected Rebel sympathisers tonight?"_

"Of course. That was a part of this... _image_... you wanted." Vader spat the word—he hated politics.

_"Senator Hyadum, of Pantora, was a Rebel spy. She was instructed to go to the ball, get him out of that room by any means necessary, where assassins were waiting."_

Vader nearly dropped the comlink.

_"Fortunately, the boy rejected her first attempt, and her accomplices were caught before she could make a second. We currently have her in custody."_

A senator...

A _Rebel senator_...

...had tried...

...to kill...

...Luke.

Luke had danced with her. Been kind to her. Talked to her.

And she had been plotting to _kill him_.

A vase on the living room table shattered. Flowers—flowers that Luke had picked himself, in the Senate gardens—were strewn all over the floor.

_"I trust you will interrogate her tomorrow?"_

"Yes," Vader ground out. "I _will_."

He turned to march into his meditation chamber, his cloak billowing around him, _the dark side_ billowing around him.

Yet another threat to his son, hiding in plain sight.

Was there no end to them?

Would they one day succeed?

And—his breath caught in his throat as the hyperbaric chamber closed—by pushing Luke into accepting his place as prince...

Had Vader made him an even larger target than he'd been before?


	16. The Symbol

**I'm back! I was away for two weeks, hence no fic updates, but I did manage to get three whole chapters of this written out by hand in my notebooks :D It'll take an age to type them up, but they are written and they are coming.**

**This was all typed up in a sort of fevered, tired rush over the past few hours, then edited in the aftermath of it, so forgive any typos XD**

* * *

Luke woke up in the wee hours of that morning, cold and strangely uncomfortable, with the realisation that he didn't remember anything since—

Since the ball.

Since his father had picked him up.

He huffed. That explained why he was still in the undershirt and trousers from the previous evening, rather than pyjamas; he'd either fallen asleep there and then, or his father had _put him_ to sleep, and been carried home.

Force.

He'd been _carried home_.

He _really_ hoped none of the senators or courtiers had hung around to see _that_.

But it was still early, still dark outside—if this had been one of his burgling nights he wouldn't have even starting heading back yet—so he didn't have the energy to hope too fervently. He just crawled out of bed, dragged himself into his pyjamas, then blacked out again the moment his head hit the pillow.

He had to be up again in only a few hours, anyway.

* * *

"Good morning," his father greeted when he stumbled into the kitchen. The droid who was making pancakes chirped a greeting as well; Luke acknowledged them both with a faint grunt.

"Not very awake?" Vader asked, amused.

Luke plopped into his seat and—when C10 dropped a stack of pancakes on the table—reached for a plate to drown in syrup. "You're telling me. I'll be properly awake soon enough."

"Good, because I don't think I need to remind you about the military strategy meeting you have been commanded to attend."

"You _don't_ need to, so please don't," he groaned through a sweet mouthful. "Why do I have to go? What will _I_ be able to add?"

"You attended a military academy for several years; do not underestimate yourself. But I feel the primary value of your beginning to attend these meetings is that you will learn and absorb, rather than contribute."

"I guess," Luke admitted grumpily, spearing another piece of pancake with his fork. "Who'll even be there, anyway?"

"It is one of the yearly update meetings with the highest ranked members of the Imperial armed forces. Most officers of importance will be there, whether by holo or in person. The Emperor presides over it; I will attend—"

Luke smiled. "Alright, I like this better already."

"—as will Governor Tarkin—"

"I take it back. Ugh." Luke wrinkled his nose. "_Tarkin?_ Grand Moff 'fear is the most effective tool to keep rebellions in line' Tarkin?" Luke imitated him as he said it, the Core accent bitter on his tongue.

"There may be a great many members of his dynasty in the navy but yes, I did mean him. Your..." He paused. "Your impression of him was uncanny."

Luke shrugged, shovelling more food in—though, at his father's pointed head tilt, he chewed and swallowed before his spoke. "At the Academy my friends and I used to compete to see who could do the best imitations. I won—there was a running joke that I should be a voice actor."

Vader said, not without amusement, "And it was common for you to use this... mimicry to mock respected members of the Empire, as well as their doctrines?"

This time, Luke pointedly did _not_ swallow his bite before he looked his father in the eye and said, "Yes."

After a moment, he added, "My impression of _you_ was infamous."

Vader snorted. "I cannot say I disapprove of the practice, I suppose. Though you will under no circumstances demonstrate this skill of yours at the meeting. And... we will discuss your clearly negative opinions of the Tarkin Doctrine later, as I cannot understand what you find so distasteful about it, but simply be sure to keep your criticisms _quiet_ in the meeting, today."

Luke smirked.

"In fact, allow me to amend that." Vader sounded wary and weary all at once. "Keep your opinions and contributions to a minimum, this first time. You can raise any objections you wish to make with me, either by the Force or afterwards. But do not speak unless addressed, and do your best to be diplomatic."

Luke promised, "I'll _do my best_."

* * *

His best was _so hard to do_.

The room was filled with people and holograms, each more distasteful than the last. Tarkin, Moff Ghadi, Thrawn, Pryce... various senators, like Erialus and Falynn were attending as well, whose eyes he did his _utmost_ not to meet. At least Piett and Veers were here—though Veers looked, for some reason, _furious_. Mara was there too, as a bodyguard, though her red head was mostly hidden in the crowd, on the other side of the room.

If it was about having to attend this meeting, Luke could certainly relate.

Palpatine had smiled warmly at Luke as Mas Amedda ushered him in; now he was seated on his left, with Vader on Palpatine's right, fielding an endless stem of greetings from officers whose names he barely knew.

He sat through it stoically—his channelled his mother and her charm, his sister and her stubbornness, as he sat and dealt with jovial men thrice his age celebrating atrocities; sycophantic people cosying up to royalty; stern-faced, respected officers who borderline glared at him and his father, muttering to each other.

Was it the nepotism that bothered them? If so, Luke understood their fears, even if... even if he knew that Palpatine would've wanted him just as much if he'd been born with this power _without _being the son of his most trusted lieutenant. But no; the resemblance between some of them, and the names he could only distantly recall, suggested that it was not _nepotism_ they found abhorrent.

Perhaps they had a grudge against his father. Perhaps they disliked his mysticism and didn't want that line to continue. Or perhaps they were miffed that Vader had killed a friend of theirs but hadn't promoted them in their place.

Who knew.

It was a good distraction so he felt himself zoning out despite himself—_despite the fact that he should be learning all the information he could, to report to Leia. _His eyes snapped back to attention when his father prodded.

_Luke_.

Luke gritted his teeth and intentionally did not glance across the table towards Vader. He could feel him laughing at him, though he was sure no one would guess from the impassive mask.

_What did I miss?_ Luke asked begrudgingly. He only did it because he saw Palpatine cut his gaze towards him, to look, and he did _not_ want to be caught off guard if the old man decided to ask him his opinion.

_Grand Admiral Thrawn was merely reporting on the state of the Empire's interests on Lothal. His TIE Defender scheme is running well, but a local Rebel cell is causing trouble._

Good. _Aren't they always?_ Luke quipped, trying not to betray his discomfort. He'd... When Luke was a few years younger and more naive, when Vader had first told him of the excellence of Thrawn's plans for the TIE Defenders and prototypes, he'd been ecstatic. The concept of one day flying something like that had excited him more than anything—the speeds, the weapon capabilities... It was stunning.

But now...

Now, the concept of those ships being turned on some of his Rebel friends filled him with dread.

_Indeed,_ was all Vader replied, then Luke sensed his presence withdraw.

Withdraw, only to then boom out loud, "Rebels are the scum of the galaxy, and have always sought to destabilise Imperial prospects. You should be able to deal with such a minor annoyance, _Grand Admiral_. Why bring it up at a meeting such as this?"

"Because," Pryce said, her holographic form brightening slightly as she spoke, "when we investigated the wreckage of one of the factories that was destroyed, this is what we discovered."

In the middle of the massive circular table they were hovering around, the visual from the central holoprojector changed—it was no longer a hologram of a wicked-looking, clawed TIE Defender, but... an actual image.

Luke frowned and leant forwards. It was a piece of graffiti on a crumbling wall, not unlike the crimson starbird the _Ghost_ crew was known to leave behind. It was the same vicious red, as was some writing underneath that the holo cut off, but the symbol was totally different: a cross made of loops; or a stylised four-leaf clover, like in legends from Alderaan; or a horizontal figure of eight or infinity loop stamped on top of a vertical one.

It looked like a flower. It looked like a royal motif and symbol from Naboo. With the loop at the bottom being more elongated than the other, squashed three, it even looked like...

He caught his breath as Pryce changed the image to one more zoomed out, one with the text under it clear and whole.

It read, in blocky Aurebesh: _In the name of the Angel_.

No.

Stars.

Oh, _stars_...

Palpatine, who'd been watching this all play out in a dim sort of amusement, frowned and leaned forwards.

"Angel," he said.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Pryce said smoothly. "Grand Admiral Thrawn is of the opinion—"

"I believe the Rebels have adopted 'Angel' as a rallying cry," Thrawn said for himself, his voice always that disconcertingly calm monotone. "They gave this thief a name for their propaganda and they have been using it ever since. Collaborations with Director Krennic—"

"I can provide my own evidence, thank you, Grand Admiral."

A man in white stood from his seat around the table, managing to look simultaneously imperious and nervous. If Luke hadn't been worried about the hot water it would land him in, he'd have rolled his eyes at all the jostling and backstabbing.

"There was an attack on the primary building site for Project Stardust, as I mentioned in my report earlier"—Luke actually remembered some parts of that; he remembered Palpatine had been _furious_, Tarkin shocked and Vader smug, though he had no idea was 'Stardust' was meant to be—"and the detail about the attack that I mentioned I would go into later is this."

The image on the projector changed again. Another picture of that symbol appeared, on the side of a great curved piece of metal, the size of a starscraper. Luke couldn't tell from anything there what in the worlds _Project Stardust_ was meant to be.

"The same people who infiltrated the project, freed the workers and set back its construction by..." Krennic swallowed, glancing between the twin glares Palpatine and Tarkin were giving him, before slowly recovering some of his self-importance. "...by decades, also left this symbol. They likely were also doing it in Angel's name."

Luke was kriffed.

Krennic was about to lose his job, and possibly his life—whatever had happened, clearly it had essentially obliterated a pet project of Palpatine's. And... it had been done in Angel's name, which meant...

Luke was so, so, so, so, so, so, _so_ kriffed.

"Angel was behind it," Palpatine said, deadly soft. "Not directly, no, but... behind it. I see."

It was so silent in the meeting room that Luke could hear the distant, distant hum of speeders beyond the Palace.

Then Palpatine turned to the rugged man seated on Luke's left, wearing a red guard's uniform.

"Captain Vassic," he said. "This is as good a time as any to begin your report on the update you have made to the Palace's security. Lord Vader has informed me that meaningful leads on this _burglar_ are currently nonexistent"—some polite sniggering around the table; Luke sensed his father's fury, the way he was clenching his fists, but was focused on shielding his own overwhelming _relief_—"so all we can achieve on that front is to increase their bounty yet again. But can you at least run through for us the measures taken to ensure that _we_ are not breached, yet again?"

Luke tried not to look too interested as Vassic cleared his throat.

"Certainly, Your Majesty," he said. Luke listened closely.

* * *

Luke's head was spinning from the amount of information he'd been trying to internalise for all the hours he sat there. He wasn't thrilled when—as Palpatine stood, everyone else stood, and Vader gestured for the prince to follow the Emperor out—he was led straight to a training room immediately after.

He did not fail to notice how heavy his father's gaze was on his back, or how cagey he acted when Luke mentally enquired where he was going.

"There are numerous things to cover," Palpatine began, seating himself in an armchair and gesturing to Luke to sit—on the floor—in front of him.

Luke did, making sure to sit well back from where the hem of his black robes brushed the floor, adopting a straight-backed, cross-legged stance. He let his gaze wander as he did: the room was more reminiscent of his father's spartan duelling salles, or the halls at the Academy where they'd been taught to shoot and wrestle, with a rack of various weapons at the far end, a smoother floor partially covered in a mat, and a high ceiling. Luke wondered how much of his training would be physical.

He wondered if he'd have to fight Palpatine.

Would it look suspicious if he killed him by accident?

"Your father, I know, has taught you a few... basics," Palpatine said, something bitter but unsurprised in his tone. "Rudimentary levitation, telepathy... and shielding." He narrowed his eyes; Luke gulped. "We will test your _aptitude_ in the other two later. For now, let us see how you fare with your _shielding_."

This could go so badly.

This could go so, so, _so_ badly.

But it wasn't like he could refuse, could he? So he just swallowed... and nodded.

"I'm ready," he said, "master."

He wasn't; not really. But Palpatine knew that too and wasn't going to wait any longer, so he just braced himself for the assault and—

A frozen spear _pierced_ the area behind his eyes; Luke cried out, the noise wrenched from his throat with a vengeance as images flashed to mind—

Leia, fifteen and righteous, staring down a teacher.

His father, infinitely tall when Luke was small, bending down to pick him up; shifting, fracturing, to the memory of how he'd done the same the previous night.

Piett and Veers. Zev. Trace and Han—they flashed by in an instant, too quickly for Palpatine to latch onto them, thank the Force—then Mara and Luke sensed amusement—

He gritted his teeth and _pushed back_.

The brutal pain in his temple eased, then _spiked_ again as Palpatine attacked once more, dashing Luke's walls to pieces, and a shout ripped from his throat again—

_No_.

Leia's face, in the Senate gardens, mouthed something at him.

_No._

If— If Palpatine ran into _certain memories_, it was all over.

_My mind is a fortress,_ he chanted. He sensed amusement but ignored it—imagined his father's castle on Mustafar through the eyes of the child he'd been when last he saw it, infinitely tall and spired, lava crawling around its edges.

Sparks flying, left right and centre.

_You will not breach my fortress._

Palpatine's shadowy hands reached greedily again, reaching for— for—

It didn't matter.

Luke lashed out, sparks flying, and they retreated. Shields coalesced in sheets of gold—part illusion, like blinding lights glinting off the Coruscanti starscrapers; part flame and magma, scalding to touch; and...

Luke had visited Tatooine, once. He'd been fifteen, curious about a past his father barely wanted to speak of—and barely capable of fending for himself. He'd crashed in the middle of a sandstorm, and he had thought he would die there.

He let Palpatine see that memory—though not all of it. Not the memory of his unknown aunt and uncle, who'd saved him and answered a few questions; not the memory of his father's fury, when he'd found out where he'd gone. Just the sensation of helplessness: of watching a shifting storm of sand swallow him,, layering onto his shield of light, glass and flame. A mess of gold, too bright to look at, too unreliable to chance invading.

Palpatine drew back, laughing distantly.

_Good,_ he conceded, his voice hissing louder than even the torrent and storm. _But shall we see if we can do better, my prince?_

And the spear returned.

Agony flared. Swirling sheets of sand, glass and fire solidified, cracked, vanished into another image, of— of— of—

A dark tunnel. An unused corridor.

_No._

He shoved back again, fire igniting and spinning around him, but Palpatine just laughed and more pain flared.

_Use it, young Skywalker,_ the voice purred. _Use the pain—your father may not have gone into the philosophies of the dark side yet, but I am sure he has preached the usefulness of pain as a tool to get what you want._

He hadn't, actually. He'd said Luke couldn't be trained in the dark side just yet and stuck to it—for what reason, Luke could only suspect.

But Leia had preached to him the _dangers_ of using pain and suffering for power.

Palpatine, as if sensing his reluctance, pushed harder and Luke's vision went _red_. He opened his eyes to a blood-tinged scene: the training room, cast in crimson; his own ruddy hands, clenched on his knees; Palpatine's corpselike and raw skin, his ember eyes, staring at him, unblinking.

The pounding in his head only grew; he scrunched his eyes shut against the pain.

Once again, he sensed Palpatine's grip veer towards that— that memory of him sneaking through the Palace corridors, fighting Mara, and said _no_—

No, he _would not see that_, that would ruin _everything_—

He reached through the fog of pain, _for_ his pain; pain was all he knew, it was the only thing that filled his mind as he _reached_—

And the fires blackened. The sand hardened to transparisteel. Luke shivered, unaccustomed to the biting _cold_ that engulfed him like an ice flash, his shields all hard angles and dark, glinting silver. Palpatine rapped on them and they rang—loudly, uncomfortably. But they did not breach.

A long, slow clapping.

Luke opened his eyes. It was Palpatine's applause—slow enough that it would seem sarcastic if Luke's couldn't sense his satisfaction.

"Good," he said, "good. Far more impressive than I expected." He smiled. "But there is, as always, room for improvement.

"Shall we go again?"

* * *

Luke's head throbbed permanently by the time he got home. He could barely fly his speeder straight without relying on blared alerts and warnings from the Force, but thankfully he made it home in one piece.

The first thing he did when he got there was take a painkiller and a nap. The second thing he did was wake up and curse himself.

He... had been meant to stay near the Palace and the Senate. Leia had messaged him in the early hours of that morning; she wanted to meet, to talk about something that had happened last night.

He wondered if it had anything to do with his father's odd behaviour after the meeting.

But he guessed he wouldn't know now. He'd have to comm her, apologise, ask to meet her tomorrow—

Unless she commed him first.

He raised his eyebrows but accepted the contact, still lying back in bed, and watched a hologram of her head and shoulders pop up.

"Hello, Leia," he said, somewhat wryly. "I— I'm sorry I forgot, I had an appointment with _His Majesty_, but—"

_"I know. I heard."_ Luke's eyebrows shot up—_how?_—but she rattled on: _"I came to yours instead. Tell your droids to let me up."_

Luke raised his eyebrows. "I'm fairly sure running into my father is the last thing you want to be doing; meeting here—"

_"Your father is occupied at the Palace. He will be for hours. That's the problem."_

Luke frowned.

What... what did _that_ mean?

"Alright," he said. "Come on up."

* * *

"This place is..." Leia twisted the side of her mouth, glancing around his room. "I know it's been a while since I was last here, but I didn't expect—"

"It to be so messy?" he joked. It _was_ not quite as neat as usual—his father had stopped having the droids clean his room when he was twelve, to make sure Luke learnt to keep it clean himself, the way he had to at the Academy, and Luke had been too tired or stressed in recent days to pick his dirty clothes off the floor.

"I expected messier," she teased. He stuck his tongue out at her.

"Alright, dearest sister," he said, sitting up on the bed—_that_, he'd... sort of made an effort to make—and giving her his full attention. "What's this about?"

She gingerly kicked her shoes off and took a seat on the bed, just across from him, straight-backed and cross-legged like a princess should. "There are no... you know... in here?" she murmured, waving her finger around.

Luke shook his head. "That would be creepy, to be frank, and an invasion of privacy my father wouldn't want to commit to. There are the stormtroopers at the front door and the back door, as well as the top and bottom floors, who respond to any security breaches when the alarms on the windows and doors go off. But no holocams, security or not. The entire reason we moved out of our quarters in the Imperial Palace when I was four was that my father didn't want my every moment spied on or scrutinised throughout my life."

"And that's played in your advantage, certainly," Leia observed.

Luke frowned.

She moved hurriedly on. "I understand, though. My parents have the same philosophy about having the royal family have some semblance of _privacy_." Luke tried not to think about the fact that, technically, they had the same parents. "So, no holocams?"

"No holocams," Luke confirmed.

Leia let out a breath. "Well then. First things first, the _actual_ mission I was instructed to give you was this: the Rebellion needs lightsabers."

Luke blinked. _"Lightsabers?"_

"Yes." Leia bit her lip. "Hearing that you successfully broke into the Imperial Palace means... well, they want to take advantage of that. Palpatine and Vader have collections of lightsabers as trophies, don't they? We... we have the number of Jedi in the Rebellion slowly..."

"Increasing?" Somehow, Luke was sceptical of that.

Leia huffed a breath. "No. But... You might have heard of the attack on the Imperial factories on Lothal. The Jedi of the _Ghost_ crew lost their lightsabers there. And... I need a new lightsaber, as well."

Luke tilted his head. "You had one in the first place?"

"Of course. It was part of my training. But the lightsaber I _did_ have..."

Luke waited.

Leia swallowed and said: "When my master gave it to me, she said it was my birth father's."

Luke flinched. "Ah."

"I think you," she said, "if anyone, should have it."

That was a terrible excuse. "Because you don't want it?"

"No. I don't want it."

That... he didn't know how he felt about this—the offer and the admission. "If someone finds out I have it—if _my father_ finds it—"

"I know. And I won't give it to you now." She folded her hands neatly in her lap. "But... yes. I need a new lightsaber. And so do the Spectres. And you are a far more viable way to achieve that than to break onto Ilum or Jedha in order to find a kyber crystal while the Empire strips them dry."

That did make sense, as much as he loathed to admit it. "I'll see what I can do," he promised. Palpatine certainly had far, far more Jedi lightsabers than he knew what to do with. "And that attack on Lothal... that was impressive."

"What have you heard about it? I thought the Empire would want to keep it quiet—though I should mention," she smirked, bumping his shoulder, "that it was only possible because you got us that chip with the Tarkin Initiative codes. The moment we learnt about it, Project Stardust became our number one target."

"Well, you've completely destroyed it, whatever it was. Krennic was saying that the construction's been set back _decades_."

"_Good_."

"What was it?"

She shook her head. "You don't want to know."

"Fine." He smiled wryly. "But I know about it because I had to attend that big military meeting today, as _prince_." He pulled a face. "And... I have questions about _using my name as a rallying cry._"

Leia grinned at him. "You consented to it."

"I did," he conceded. "But this... I'm kriffed."

"They're looking for an angel," Leia assured him. "Not a prince. Don't worry."

"Am I not both?" he joked, something still uncomfortably tight in his chest. She swatted his arm.

"How was the meeting?"

"Boring. I'll type up the full intelligence and give it to you or Han later." He smiled, genuinely, then, even if it was a mere quirk of the lips. "It was fascinating, hearing the exact plans for the stringent safety measures they're implementing at the Palace to prevent another Angel attack."

Leia laughed. "That's good to hear. And—"

She cut herself off.

"What?" he asked. "And what was the rest of what you came to tell me?"

Leia sighed. "Senator Hyadum. You know her?"

"I danced with her yesterday."

"Exactly."

Luke tilted his head in question.

"She's been accused of treason, subject to interrogation and imminent execution," Leia said flatly, "for attempted assassination of the Imperial prince."

Each word dropped in the silence like powerless speeders, dropping from the sky.

"Ah," was all Luke said. "So that's where my father is."

"Indeed."

Luke was silent for a moment—thinking over... everything. Hyadum's face, her tattoos, flashed to mind.

"Is the accusation true?" he asked, a little numbly. "She wasn't a very good assassin, if so."

"I contacted the main cell; they contacted the cell near Pantora, who kept in contact with her. It's more extreme than we are, and... Apparently it is true," she had the grace to grimace, "though she hasn't confessed. She... she's got a similar role to me, and is generally a sweet, peaceful person. She wasn't on board with the idea of assassination, no matter who it was; she was pressured into it. She was meant to lead you out of the Palace, to a specific room, where you'd get attacked."

"I would?" he asked. "Or both of us would?"

Leia shrugged. "I don't think they minded, so long as you were dead."

Luke was still quiet. "The Rebellion doesn't know who I am—that I'm Angel," he said, "and not every major decision is run by you. How do I know they won't try to kill me again?"

"They won't," Leia said surely. Then her voice was... slightly weaker. "The Rebellion are better than that."

Luke just nodded, and made no further acknowledgement. "So you want me to rescue Hyadum before she's killed?"

"Ideally. She... got caught up in something. She has the best of intentions. And she's always been a great asset to the Rebellion."

"I'm sure she has—and you don't need to layer it on, Leia, I'll save her whether she's a saint or not."

She beamed at him. "I knew you would."

He was already running through the security in his head, the routes around the Palace dungeons, the sort of time he had. "She'll be executed tomorrow?"

"At 0600 hours, according to my informant."

Luke nodded. "Alright. Then I'll save her tonight." Palpatine's trophy collections were clean on the other side of the Palace from the prisons. "I'll save her tonight, and... I'll get back to you about the lightsabers. I won't be able to do them both at once, but..."

Well. He'd be pushing his luck to try to break into the Imperial Palace a _third_ time.

"Thank you, Luke. You have no idea how much you do for the Rebellion."

He was about to dismiss it.

Then...

"I have an idea of it," he murmured—_allowed himself_ to murmur. His mind flashed back to those holos—that symbol. "What's with the doodle that accompanies the Angel graffiti?"

"The clover?" He nodded. "It's a stylised angel."

"It's a bunch of loops."

"It's _stylised_ and it's easy to draw quickly. That's what's important."

Luke huffed. "You designed it, didn't you."

"No. Sabine Wren did. But I approved it." She winked.

Luke laughed.

* * *

When he looked back at his comm again, after Leia had left, he had three missed calls from Zev.

_"I need your help,"_ was the only clear message from their minutes and minutes' worth of rambling—so, of course, the first thing Luke did was comm him back.

"Hey," he said when he picked up. "Sorry, I've been busy"—_really_, extremely busy, ever since his father returned to Coruscant—"but I'm here now if you need anything."

Zev caught his breath before he replied. _"I— thank you, Luke. There— there was a speeder I was working on, this challenge my _father_ set me as _family bonding time_, and I was wondering if you could help at some point? You know— you know mechanics isn't what I'm good at."_

"Of course," Luke replied, though he was fairly sure the story was a lie; Zev wasn't the sort of person to comm him three separate times over something like that. "Does now work? Life always seems simpler when you're fixing things."

There was a moment of silence, then—

_"Yeah,"_ Zev said. _"Yeah, it does."_

* * *

"So what was the challenge?" Luke asked, following his friend into his back room, where the speeder was. "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it." And Luke would've thought that any _challenge_ Veers would set Zev would be something to do with military tactics, something in his own area of expertise, anyway; not mechanics.

Zev started it up. Luke winced at the racket—a sort of grinding and rattling. "I take it back."

"Uh huh. My father said that if I could fix it so it was noiseless, the way it was advertised, I could keep it."

"A typical challenge for a father." Well. For _Luke's_ father. Whether it was typical of _all_ fathers was debatable.

"He's trying, I suppose."

They shared a smile and got to work.

"I... haven't spoken to you much, yet," Zev said, a touch awkwardly. "Not since... you know."

"The prince thing?"

"Yeah. That." Zev twirled a hydrospanner in his hands. "What's that like?"

Luke scoffed a laugh. "I'm not a fan."

"If I could choose who the prince was," Zev offered, "you'd be first."

"_Choosing _isn't exactly the point of _princes_ though, is it?" He ran his hands through his hair, uncaring that it was getting greasy. "I appreciate that, though, even if... I'm just not cut out for it. At that ball yesterday—which I was disappointed not to find you at, by the way, your father was there—"

"Me? At a ball? You must be joking."

_"I would say the same_— anyway, it's just clear. I'm not meant for this. I don't like sitting in on these things knowing I'm just for show, projecting an image. A symbol of... _something_, I don't know."

"Just for show?" Zev paused. "Don't you have any influence?"

"As prince? Nope." It was pretty early on to call that, but... he knew Palpatine would never listen to him if his views contradicted his own; he couldn't even convince his _father_, let alone the other important officials. He unscrewed something ferociously to let out some of his frustrations, tongue between his teeth.

"I—" Zev seemed lost for words. "When we were talking before... we both had issues with the Empire."

"It's flawed, to say the least."

"Yes. Do..." He swallowed. "Do you think it is possible for us to change it, from the inside? Or was that just naive of us?"

Luke stopped.

He... stood there for a moment, giving it some thought.

_Should_ he be trying to do that? He hated almost all of what the Empire did—but not _quite_ all of it. He didn't hate his father, though many did. He didn't hate Piett, or Veers, or any of the people who served it genuinely, flaws and all, because they believed in it.

Should he use his position to _change it_, bloodlessly? Or keep using it to burn this empire to the ground?

He wished he could say he'd thought about this a lot. But in truth... he'd started stealing for his father as an act of revenge, then for Leia, as a favour. It... had escalated from there—to stealing things he thought deserved to, _should be_, stolen.

Senator Hyadum—or rather, her allies, were clearly in favour of the destruction. Of tearing it all down, the cost be damned, and doing whatever it took to get there. Luke sympathised with that, even if he didn't sympathise with the assassination part.

What would he do, if he became Emperor?

What would he change?

_How_ would he change it?

"I..." he tried to say, when he realised he'd been silent for a while. "I don't know, Zev. I want to believe that, but... I don't want false hope."

"False hope," Zev echoed.

"I'm going to do my best," Luke resolved—to Zev and to himself—"but... I'm not certain whether or not I can succeed."

Zev nodded. "That sounds like a good plan," he said. "I..."

He paused for one pregnant moment, staring, _something_ on the top of his tongue.

Luke waited.

Zev clammed up. "I'll do my best to do either of them," he said.

"Do you know which one you'd want to do?"

"No," Zev said.

He was lying.

* * *

Sana Starros was visiting Coruscant again when she looked at a wanted poster for Angel.

The bounty had doubled.

That... that was higher than anything she'd get from Han.

_Sixty thousand credits for any information on this thief..._

She smiled to herself and turned away—she could use this. Somehow, someway, she could sell what she knew to cash that bounty in.

She didn't have Angel. But she _did_ have information.

And she knew that information could go a _long_ way.


	17. The Defector

**Okay, it's late and I'm very tired and this was rushed and probably riddled with errors, but,, here it is, anyway. I, as always, dislike writing heists XD**

* * *

Luke was going to change the Empire from the inside. He'd decided that. But that didn't mean he was going to stop crippling and sabotaging it from the outside as well.

The cells were in the very belly of the Palace, directly underneath the throne room, a few floors down. Now he thought about it, that probably had something to do with the dark side, with Palpatine wanting to corrupt the Jedi Temple further, with him revelling in the pain and suffering that occurred on his orders—but Luke didn't want to dwell too much on that. It was depressing.

He'd been wrong, he realised as he glanced over his schematics for the Palace—his father had given them to him a few years ago, to _familiarise himself with in case of attack_. The cells were deep in the bowels of the building, but they _weren't _miles away from Palpatine's secret vault, the one he'd already breached once. If he wanted to, he could use the turbolift shaft to get a straight shot up or down, free the prisoners, then shoot up there, or get the sabers, then shimmy down...

No. That wouldn't work. Luke knew he was skilled—and he knew exactly _how_ skilled. If he got in and out of Palpatine's vault—with was doubtful in the first place; _that_ had not been a part of the Palace protection updates he'd been privy to, since they were meant to be _private_ vaults after all—he wouldn't do it without triggering alarms. Nor would he be able to save the senator without triggering alarms.

If the Palace was on lockdown, he'd barely be able to escape—let alone carry out another heist, and let alone with Hyadum in tow.

The routes he'd used to get in the Palace before would be compromised—Mara had known them, and she would ensure they were being patrolled.

Thankfully, the lower levels of the Jedi Temple—the levels so low they'd barely been touched since it was a _Sith shrine_, long before the Jedi in the later days of the Republic—were labyrinthine. No one could patrol them all. But Luke knew a lot of them.

So he slipped into the Palace through another old forgotten alley, and then he was in an old, forgotten corridor, dark and dank with dust.

He turned one corner then another, then another—and there. A gaping black square in front of him. The turbolift.

He tapped at his wrist, the comlink strapped to it. It projected a 3D blue map of this part of the Palace. He traced his route with his finger; yes, this was the shaft he needed.

It would be dangerous. The shaft went down—well. It went down until it hit the mountain on the surface of Coruscant that the Palace was built on top of. If he fell...

He didn't want to think about that.

It was an active turbolift, as well; he'd have to be careful not to get hit by the lift itself. He'd have to be _insanely_ careful.

This plan was made.

But he knew he'd pull it off well—so long as he didn't try to hit two ships with one torpedo.

* * *

Vader was thrumming with rage.

He had worked on Senator Hyadum for _hours_, his fury chanting a song in the Force. She had given him nothing.

_Nothing_.

Luke's life could depend on this. Those assassins she'd been working with, their plan, could still be at large. They wanted to hurt Luke _and they still could_.

But she had given him only useless, pathetic pleas for innocence. And her accomplices remained unknown, unnamed and unfound.

He'd stormed there immediately after that meeting, his fear over that fact that Luke was with Palpatine sharpening the Force into a glass knife around him, ready to cut and shatter. But though it had broken upon Hyadum, she had not broken upon it—and now...

He clenched his fists as he marched through the corridors of the _Executor_, just returned from quelling a minor uprising on Corellia that afternoon. He was planning on making the arrangements to have her moved here; while he was sure the Palace interrogators were considered skilled, he would rather it be his own people who worked on here, constantly, until she gave answers. It was _his son_ at stake.

"Lord Vader!" a voice barked. Captain Piett was approaching; Vader turned to give him his attention, annoyance and irritation spiking.

"Yes, Captain?" Piett looked nervous, but resolute; considering the fact that what he reported had little to do with his actual navy duties, Vader suspected he'd been put up to it by one officer or another.

"ISB would like to know if it's only Hyadum you wish transferred? There are others in the block who they think could benefit from being moved—"

"Such as whom, Captain?"

Piett swallowed, looking supremely awkward.

"A boy, son of a significant member of the military; the senator herself; a Twi'lek man suspected of having interacted with Angel—"

"Bring them all, then, yes." Vader had little patience for the farce that was this investigation; anything that could possibly help was worth a try.

"Very good, my lord."

"Dismissed."

Piett relaxed out of his to-attention stance and made to tride back down the hall; Vader watched him go a few paces. He looked... very tense.

"Piett," he said, "wait."

* * *

The Palace corridors were swarming, which was problematic; a man in a black mask was extremely recognisable, but so was Luke's bare face, by now. He couldn't take the main corridors—not that he'd want to—and even the side corridors were busier than he'd like. It had been one thing to listen to the statistics of the increased security, their rotations, their locations, and quite another thing to actually _bypass _it all.

At least one observation he'd made to himself during that meeting still held true.

They had not clocked that Angel knew and used the vents, yet.

_And_, he complained in his mind as he leapt from the floor of the side corridor to drag himself in, coughing at the dust, _for good reason_.

What madman would crawl through them willingly, after all?

The Force thrummed beside him like a live wire. It sparked every time a person came near, which was handy, but it set his teeth on edge, every inch of him taut and tense. Though perhaps that, too, was a good thing; this was not a good time for him to let down his guard.

It was dangerous to use the Force this close to Palpatine, this suspiciously, _especially_ after he'd already tried to invade his mind that day. But Palpatine had better things to do—though, come to think of it, Luke couldn't name any; torture innocent children?—than examine the Force all day every day, especially in the middle of the night. He was probably asleep.

So when Luke reached the detention level and crawled up to a slit in the side of the vent, peering out at the officers standing and chatting in the control centre... he grasped the Force.

Flexed it.

And then he reached for where he knew the power generator for this floor was.

It conveniently _malfunctioned_.

"What—?" someone down there—a gruff, older man with a Core accent—said as everything went dark. "Ugh, is the power out again?"

Luke smiled.

Palpatine's security renovations—fewer doors, more people, more terminals to scan security passes with, more holocams—were extensive. Once they were fully implemented, Luke was never breaking into the Palace again. But until then, that much rewiring and rebuilding was causing _glitches_.

The extra guards might be a pain to dodge. But _this_, he could turn to his advantage.

"Looks like it's the whole level that's out," a woman called from the door. There was a general smattering of grumbling and irritation; Luke sensed it loud and clear as he took each of their consciousnesses in his palm...

And snuffed them.

They dropped where they stood, out cold. Luke focused and the screws in the vent he hovered above began to twist, unwinding themselves, until they clattered to the floor with the grate.

Luke dropped down after them, as silent as he could, despite the fact he'd already made a racket, and moved quickly towards the cells.

Frequent power outages or not—Hyadum was an important prisoner. Someone would be sent to reinforce the security here. It was a matter of minutes before they arrived; longer, once they got through the doors that were locked without power.

At least with the holocams out of action, as well, they'd have no idea something was wrong until they got in.

Luke was living on borrowed time.

He crept down the corridor, squinting through the red emergency lighting that had flared into existence, bouncing off the stark, forbidding grey walls. There were only a few cells on this level—the ones usually reserved for Rebel agitators of a higher, more concerning security breach, unless some Moff or lord or another had commandeered them for a specific investigation. The other Rebels were in the floor below, political opponents above...

Luke sensed someone in the cell immediately to his left and jammed the button to open it, his heart hammering in his head. Borrowed time... borrowed time...

Then the cell door opened, the occupant stared at him, and Luke froze.

* * *

Piett immediately stood to attention again. "My lord?"

"You appear tense," Vader observed, hooking his thumbs into his belt. Then he amended, "More so than usual. What is it?" The Force drummed in his ears.

Piett swallowed. "It's... nothing, my lord, a personal thing of my friend's—"

"And yet it has to do with Hyadum and her cellmates?"

Piett made to dismiss it again, then immediately thought better of it and simply said— "The boy, the defector. Zevulon Veers. He is General Veers's son. I... feel for my friend."

Vader froze.

"General Veers's," he said softly, _"son?"_

"Yes, my lord."

Vader... took a moment to process that. He thought, maybe, that he remembered the boy—he'd met him at that open day at the Academy, and begrudgingly admitted that he didn't disapprove of _this_ friend of Luke's.

A loyal Imperial cadet. A loyal son.

Caught in the midst of Rebellion.

How... how would he feel if that was Luke? A sudden fear gripped Vader's heart, tightly. Zevulon had been friends with Luke, they'd spoken mere hours or days ago—what if he'd infected Luke's mind with this propaganda? What if—

_No._

Vader knew Luke. Vader _trusted_ Luke. His son would not betray him.

And when he heard about his friend... he would be devastated.

To defect from an empire the moment his friend because its prince? What sort of a person was Zevulon?

How would Luke react? _This would break his heart._

"My..." he tried; he'd been silent for so long that Piett started. "My sincerest condolences to General Veers. This cannot be easy for him."

If Piett was surprised at the sentiment, he did not show it. "It's not. I will pass the message along." Then he paused. "Is... is Luke..."

"I do not know. I am aware they were friends; I will speak to him first thing tomorrow." He unhooked his thumbs from his belt. "I will go to deal with young Zevulon and Hyadum myself, now."

Because Zevulon... was an Imperial who'd turned traitor. He was an academy student. He'd been on Coruscant for several months now.

Was he Angel?

If he was—had it been his own father by whom he'd finally been caught?

Piett had the grace to nod. "Yes, my lord."

* * *

_Zev._ The name rose to Luke's lips and he smothered it immediately; he was in disguise. He was _in disguise_—he couldn't let him recognise him.

Not until they were out of the Palace for sure.

Zev looked terrible. His dark hair was all in disarray, his eyes wide, skin sickly pale—pale, that was, except for the bruise and black eye that consumed half his face like an indigo thunder cloud clinging to his left cheek. Dried blood flecked his nose.

He stared at him. Zev stared back.

He rasped, "Who the hell are you?"

Luke thanked all the stars for his black balaclava, his suit which disguised the shape of his figure somewhat.

What did he say? What did he _do_?

He wasn't about to just _leave Zev there_.

"I'm here to get you out," was all he said instead—drawing on all the times he'd changed his voice effectively, deepening it significantly.

Zev narrowed his eyes—but he looked scared. "Well, Mr. Here-To-Get-You-Out—"

"Are you coming?" Luke snapped. "Or what?"

"Answer my question," Zev continued stubbornly. Luke cursed his friend. "Who are you?"

Luke just backed away towards the next cell he could sense someone in, tossing over his shoulder, "Who do you think?"

Zev breathed, _"Angel,"_ and followed.

Luke jabbed the next door. This wasn't Hyadum either, he noticed; it was a Twi'lek man pacing nervously, lekku twitching, who turned his face up to Luke—

And grinned broadly.

"You again," he murmured. "You— you shouldn't have come." He looked no less happy for it.

Luke remembered him, now. The Twi'lek he'd met last week, coming back from that handoff with Han, when he'd first realised just how much of a reputation he truly had.

"I came," he said, somewhat awkwardly.

When he hit the next cell, _finally_, it was Hyadum.

She blinked at him once, twice. Her eyes were silver and glistening. And puffy. "You—"

"Yeah," Luke said. "We've established that." Then she was out too.

The three prisoners... blinked at each other, solidly, for several moments before nodding and turning to Luke.

Luke... didn't know what to do. When he'd agreed to rescue a person who'd been plotting to kill him, it didn't seem like he'd fully registered the fact he'd have to _talk to people_, in the mask.

The Twi'lek was looking at him oddly—abruptly, Luke remembered that he'd used his usual voice when they'd met before. He swallowed and hoped he wouldn't say anything.

"Senator Hyadum," was all he said to Hyadum. This... yeah. That was awkward. "Zevulon Veers." Zev looked _thoroughly_ freaked out by the fact _Angel_ knew his name. "And I don't know your name," he finished to the Twi'lek. "I didn't know you'd be here."

"Jem Taalla," the Twi'lek said proudly.

"Nice to meet you."

Zev bit out, "This is the detention level of the Imperial Palace, not a state function, Angel. Are we going to stand here forever?"

"No," Luke said. "We're going to wait for the power to start to come back. All the exit doors are locked until then, don't worry, and it will take a while." The fact that the doors to the cells were on a separate control and power system to the rest of the floor, for security reasons, was an advantage in this case.

"You can't get through a locked door?" Hyadum burst out. "Once the power comes back so will the Imperials, surely?"

Yes. That was the difficult part.

"I... was expecting only Hyadum," Luke admitted. "The escape plan was made with her in mind. I didn't expect Veers, of all people, to defect—"

"You don't know me," Zev snapped, tense, even as Hyadum glared at him—

"You're related to _General Veers_?"

"And I didn't expect to see you again, Taalla."

"Please just call me Jem."

"Alright." He surveyed them.

He had _so many questions_.

He knew why Hyadum was there. In hindsight, if he stopped to think about it, he could probably figure out when and why Zev had defected. And Jem... if he was on the floor for political prisoners, or for a specific project, it was probably because the Imps had found out that he'd run into Angel—heard their voice, seen them work.

But still. Three people to save, rather than one.

"This," Luke said, as the light began to flicker in the way that meant the power was beginning to come back on, "is going to be a tight squeeze."

* * *

"You know?" Zev grumbled as they crawled through the vents. With the power back on, the air conditioning had started up again as well, and that made enough noise to cover their whispers. "This is a lot less glamorous than I imagined when I heard about the master thief named _Angel_."

Luke had to laugh, and he sensed Zev tense up behind him as the sound of it. "I'm a glorified burglar," he teased. "The Rebellion gave me a name and I'll use it."

"Hm." Zev didn't sound convinced. "So no golden wings? No halo of light? No flying?"

"I have fabric on my crawling suit which means I can sort of _glide_, I suppose." It was only really useful when he was falling; it slowed the fall, somewhat, even before he used the Force. "But no, no halo. Not even any gold costuming. And no wings." Luke smirked to himself. "I can't walk the skies."

Zev _hmphed_ again. "Do I know you?"

"I know you." Luke was _enjoying_ this. "The same way I know Hyadum, or Jem, or His Wrinkly Majesty, Palpatine himself. I know you all, Zevulon Veers." Being dramatic, the way _Angel_ demanded, was _fun_.

Zev huffed, but there was amusement—and even a flash of _recognition_—there now. "You're your own unique brand of cryptic, aren't you?"

Honestly, Luke had just been channelling his father, in those weird, ominous moments he started talking about _destiny_—but he wasn't about to tell Zev that.

"How much farther?" Hyadum asked weakly. Luke... hadn't failed to notice that she was pretty out of it, leaning on Jem a lot of the time, though she glared down through the grates in the vents as though the troopers marching past would self-combust if only she hated them enough. Her pain was an open wound in the Force—Luke _ached_ at the thought of what his father must have done to her, even before he considered Vader's rage at the supposed assassination attempt...

Distantly, an alarm began to blare.

It set Luke's teeth on edge: their time was officially _up_.

"Crawl faster," he said.

* * *

Vader reached the Palace to find the detention level Hyadum and Zevulon were on in total disarray.

"What," he thundered, striding in, "is the meaning of all of this?"

At least five guards and interrogation officers flinched at the sound of his booming voice. _Good_. The lights were flickering in the way that meant they were just coming back on. He'd _thought_ that Palpatine's guard's _improvement_ to the Palace security had been foolish; this, he suspected before even hearing what they had to say for themselves, would prove him right.

"My lord..." a woman began, then trailed off. He cast the Force out like a net to reel back in—jus for the contents of this level. There was no one in the cells.

_There was no one in the cells._

_"Where,"_ he thundered, "is Hyadum? Where is Veers!?"

That same woman—a dark haired human with a pale, pinched face—swallowed. "They... escaped, sir."

_"Escaped?"_ Vader's voice promised death.

"I don't know what happened, not exactly," she continued stubbornly. "One minute, the power was out and we were irritated... then I was waking up on the floor from where I'd been unconscious, and the prisoners were gone."

_"Gone."_

He... remembered this. _Recognised_ this.

"Gone," she confirmed.

"And no gas or stun bolts caused you to fall unconscious?"

She shook her head. "No, my lord. We just became infinitely weary, then we were waking up again."

Angel had knocked out the guards at Falynn's residence, too. They were Force-sensitive, after all—why not use that to their advantage, to remove opponents without killing them? (Personally, Vader would have just killed them, but that was a difference of opinion he shared with _Luke_, let alone Angel.)

Which meant... which _must_ mean...

Vader growled. After the sound faded, there was silence—only broken by a chorus of snapped necks and the ominous hissing of his own breath.

Angel had stepped in to foil his plans. _Again._

Angel had spirited away the woman whose secret threatened Luke's life, the boy whose defection might shed some light on _why_, and what was coming for Luke—the boy whose treason would break his son's heart.

So he knew that Zevulon was not Angel—Angel had rescued him, after all. But he knew no more.

He stormed out of the detention level, leaving the officers' corpses lying on the floor behind him.

* * *

Luke was so tense he was about to vibrate out of his own skin, but— "And we're _out_."

Hyadum, Zev and Jem clambered into his speeder, with one last nervous glance back at the dark, abandoned corridors he'd come in through, and they took of stealthily.

All was awkwardly silent for an age, but eventually—when the Imperial Palace was long out of sight—Zev said, "This is not how I thought my day would be going."

"Did you expect to be on a Rebel base by now? You will be soon." Leia had sent Han to ferry Hyadum off planet the way he did with the valuables—Luke was _pretty _sure he'd be able to convince him to take the other two. What would happen if he didn't, after all?

Zev sighed. "I guess that speeder I was working on wasn't silent _enough_."

Luke raised his eyebrows.

Oh, Zev was onto him, if he was fishing with references like that.

He didn't fall for it. "I'm sorry to hear that." But... "Your _father_ handed you in?"

"Yes," Zev replied bitterly. Jem and Hyadum were giving him sympathetic looks and Luke could sense his resentment of it all. "I was hoping he wouldn't, but... I knew he would."

Luke swallowed.

That... hit a little too close to home.

When _his_ father found out he was Angel? What... how would he react?

Vader loved Luke. He would burn the galaxy for him—Luke _knew that_. He wanted what was best for Luke, always, and he did everything in his power to keep Luke safe, secure and happy.

But... his father had poured his blood, sweat, tears and most of his limbs into the Empire. Even if he didn't _love it_, not the way he loved Luke... he was deadly, utterly loyal to it.

He would not betray it. He would not accept Luke betraying it.

So what would he do?

Turn him in?

Turn him back, somehow, by any means necessary?

Vader liked having Luke near to him. He loved him. He didn't want him unhappy.

...but he'd sent Luke away.

For years.

Luke had begged and screamed not to go. He'd tried to run away, when he was eleven, so he wouldn't have to. He'd not made a secret how miserable he'd been there, as _Darth Vader's son_, until he'd met Zev, ad Leia, and he'd found his place.

But his father had not budged. It was more important that Luke be raised to be loyal to and serve the Empire. It was more important that _Vader _not be _distracted_ by a young child any longer, especially as Luke grew into a teenager, so Vader could properly dedicated himself to the Empire.

To the _Emperor_.

To _Palpatine_.

Just the way Palpatine had wanted from his apprentice since the start—something that Luke had got in the way of.

So... if it came down to it.

If Vader found out.

Would he continue to protect Luke?

He was hoping he would.

But he knew he wouldn't.

* * *

They reached the tooka shelter soon enough. Luke flew to the platform and stopped it, tumbling out of the speeder before it had even truly powered down. His mask nearly slipped; he fixed it before anything was betrayed, and smirked at Zev, who was watching him do so with an intent gaze.

"Here we are," Luke said, and led the three of them into the large main room of the shelter. Zev was looking around uncomfortably, Jem was looking around curiously, and Hyadum was looking at Luke.

"Thank you," she murmured to him. Luke... didn't know how he felt about this woman, this woman who'd been forced into but tried to kill him, so he stayed quiet at first. "I... have not said much. I did not want you to speak more than necessary, for security reasons, and also I did not want to speak." She shivered. Pity eclipsed resentment, in his heart, and he felt for her. "But thank you for coming for me, Angel."

He was quiet for a moment, then reached out slowly. When she didn't flinch back or object, he rested it lightly on her shoulder.

"I heard what you attempted to do," he said. "I... well. I am glad you failed." She stiffened. "But you did not deserve this. And I am sorry, from the bottom of my heart, for what Vader did to you, and that I could not save you sooner. But you are safe now. They'll protect you."

She bowed her head and nodded. He dropped his hand from her shoulder and turned.

"Kid!" Han stampeded into the room, trumpeting his presence. Luke resisted a smile. "is this— huh." He stared at Jem. "I thought Her Highnessness said the senator was a woman."

"I am," Hyadum said loudly, drawing Han's gaze to her.

Luke said, "There were three prisoners on that detention level. I brought them all."

"Are they all coming?" Han shifted. "Smuggling a fugitive's one thing, but _three_—"

"Is the sort of thing Leia pays you for. Unless you'd rather take it up with her?" Luke shot back, not unamused.

Han laughed. "Nah, point taken. Let's not go pissing off Her Worship."

"That would be wise."

"Now, Luke," Han said, "are you gonna introduce them?"

Zev _gasped_.

Luke cringed.

Cringed, but... laughed to himself, as he turned around.

"I'll let you get to know each other once you're in space, I think," Luke said, then turned to meet the storm.

Zev was glaring at him with _utter indignation_. "Luke!?"

He stalked forwards, until he was standing right in front of him, staring.

Luke tilted his head in challenge.

Zev's hand snapped up. Luke didn't stop him as he tore the mask from his face and glowered. _"Luke!?"_

Luke started laughing—then stopped, again, when...

He could sense Hyadum's horror.

"You—" Zev was still spluttering. "You complete _sleemo_—"

"Hey." Luke grabbed his shoulders to spin him towards Han and said in his normal voice, "save the name calling for later. You need to get to the Rebel base."

"You— we are not done here! _You're_ Angel!? All this time!? When I was telling you about my doubts about the Empire _you were the infamous thief—_"

"Evidently."

"You—!"

"You're the Imperial prince," Hyadum said. Her voice was dull.

Jem had been curious but nonplussed by Zev's reaction; now, his eyes blew wide.

"I—" Luke couldn't really name the colour Hyadum was turning right now, but he was fairly sure it wasn't healthy for Pantorans to be. She got out, choking on her own horror, "I tried to—"

"You failed," he said simply. It... well. It was forgiveness, if only out of necessity; he didn't really want to hate her for the rest of his life. It didn't make what she'd done alright. He just hoped she re_-_evaluated next time.

She spluttered and opened her mouth again, _glaring_ now, the shock and horrible irony of it catching up to her—

—but Luke had to turn away.

"I need to go," he said. "I need to be home before sunrise."

"Or your _father_ will notice?" Zev challenged. Luke ignored him—and tried not to wince as Hyadum mouthed _your father_, turning an even sicklier shade of not-blue.

"Han will take care of you," was all he said, with a smirk in Han's direction. "Or, Han won't. But Chewie will."

"Hey, kid—"

"Luke—"

Luke turned to meet Zev's eyes.

"Thank you," his friend said, earnestly. "And... good luck."

Luke knew it wasn't just for his more angelic endeavours.

He inclined his head, pulled his mask back onto his face, and left.

* * *

When Vader returned home again that morning to check on Luke, it was... with worry. With apprehension.

With shame.

He was failing to protect his son.

Luke was fast asleep, the covers pulled right up to his chin, dead to the world. His light hair fell, fluffy, across his forehead and his face was relaxed in unconsciousness.

He was so small. So precious. So _breakable_.

Vader couldn't bear to watch any longer.

He shut the door behind him, as quietly as he could, and strode down the corridor, his fears chasing him with every step.


	18. The Secret

**Okay, this is a short chapter, and I'm not 100% sure how happy with it I am, but it had to come out XD We're building up to the good stuff. Also, it might seem like I always update this fic when I'm tired, there certainly seems to be a trend, but again: if there's any weird sentence constructions or typos or whatnot, that's because I'm ready to fall asleep where I sit.**

* * *

The next morning was… awkward, to say the least.

Luke got up to find his father hovering in the living room, staring out the large windows at the speeders zooming past. The moment he sensed Luke arrive, he turned; Luke froze under the weight of his gaze.

"I…" He paused, then laced his hands together behind his back. "I noticed that you have another speeder in the hangar that you were working on."

Vader, Luke knew well, was usually the most direct he could possibly be. Beating around the bush was not a skill in his arsenal.

But there had been a few times in Luke's life where his father had tried to break something to him delicately—and ended up lost for words.

"Yes?" was what he replied with, then, trying to see where he was going with this. "I was going to spend the day at the mechanics' fixing it." And showing Trace how to—retreating to his familiar sanctum.

Vader simply offered, "I would enjoy working on it with you, in the hangar."

Luek blinked. "Don't you have work to do? Aren't you busy catching Angel?"

"I have no leads there," Vader grumbled. "And… I have cleared most of the day so I can spend time with my son."

Despite himself, Luke smiled. Broadly.

"I'd love to," he said.

* * *

"Pass the hydrospanner."

He didn't specify which sized one, but he didn't need to; his father handed him the right size anyway, and Luke didn't even have to come out from under the speeder to receive it, the Force scooting it into his hand. Vader had tried to get under there to do it himself, but Luke had insisted—and he was far too big, anyway. He just sat on a chair off to the side, providing dry commentary and pointers in response to Luke's questions.

This was peaceful, he thought. This… it was nice.

He reached up to unscrew a bolt and grunted, squinting at it. It was stuck fast; he grasped the hydrospanner with both hands, and _pulled_—

The spanner slipped off. He slammed his head back against the floor. _"Kriff."_

"Are you alright!?" His father's cold presence crowded around him; the spanner grew frozen in his hand, but at least there was a sort of ice pack around his head?

"'M fine," Luke grunted, lifting his head up again. "This fracking bolt's just being stubborn."

"Allow me to help," Vader said; with a flick of his fingers, and the Force, it spun and clattered to the floor. "And language," he added as an afterthought.

Luke laughed. "Sorry," he said. He wasn't really sorry.

A few more minutes passed in companionable silence, before Luke said, "We should do this more often."

"Which part? The part where you injure yourself while performing basic tasks?"

"Very funny. But you know what I meant, Father."

Vader's presence softened, settling around Luke's shoulders like a pair of warm, heavy wings.

"I do. And I agree. We have not spent an abundance of time together… ever, in fact."

"Well, that might be because you sent me to the Academy."

"It was necessary."

"I know, Father." Luke resisted the urge to sigh. "But even after I got back," he teased, "you've been away."

"The work of the Empire is important, son."

Luke knew that. When he pushed himself out from under the speeder and sat up, he tried to keep his disappointment off his face.

Even so, Vader leaned down to capture his chin in his hand. "But not as important as you."

His thumb stroked Luke's cheekbone: Luke tried not to flush.

"I will make more time," Vader promised, sitting back again.

Luke swallowed, and tried not to look too… hopeful? Sceptical? He didn't know.

"That would be nice," he tried with a nervous laugh. "You don't need a reason to hang out with me, after all."

Perhaps he'd been tempting fate, by saying that.

Because the moment he did, Vader said, "…I do not."

Luke flicked his eyes and pricked his ears up immediately. He could hear the _but_ loud and clear.

"But today," Vader admitted, "I do have a reason."

"Ah." Luke should've known. "What was it? I _knew_ you were being cagey earlier."

Vader sounded affronted. "I," he declared, "was not being _cagey_—"

"Yeah, you were."

Vader huffed. If he'd been feeling more light-hearted, if the air hadn't felt like it was pressing down on, in and around him, Luke might have laughed.

"Your friend," Vader said abruptly. "Zevulon Veers."

Oh.

Luke… Luke knew _exactly_ where _this_ was going—

"He attempted to defect last night," Vader continued—Luke let his _shock_ at this being discussed with him by his father, his _horror_ at having to have this conversation at all, at having to act innocent, ring out; he hoped it was convincing.

He hoped his father was convinced.

"General Veers caught and apprehended him in the act; I was on my way to interrogate him along with Hyadum, on suspicions that they were a threat to— that they had links to Angel…" Luke couldn't quite meet his father's eyes, but he knew Vader couldn't tear his gaze away. "Angel spirited them away before I could."

Luke… was silent for a moment.

He didn't know how to react to this.

He didn't know how his father was expecting him to react.

"…what?" he said finally, and perhaps how _utterly lost_ he was even helped his act.

"Your friend is a traitor. I… am sorry, Luke. He betrayed you."

_He didn't_, was Luke's instinctive reply, but… Luke was the Imperial prince. He supposed it would look that way.

"Zev…" he said.

"There are security concerns," Vader barrelled on. "Zevulon was your friend—he has betrayed you once already, and we _know_ he has come into contact with Angel. He… may have betrayed information about you, your schedule, where you spend your time—"

"Why would I…" Luke shook his head. "Why would Zev… Why would _Angel_ want to know that?"

"Because _you are the prince_." His father sounded _irritated,_ now. He even stood from his chair, kicking and scattering various tools with his feet, and paced up and down beside the speeder. "Luke, I had thought this news would cure you of your nonchalance about this whole situation, and about _your safety_. You have already faced one assassination attempt. Why are you so certain there will not be another?"

Luke… didn't know how to respond to that.

"I don't," he said.

"Then _listen_ to me when I say that the fact a Rebel agent has been so proliferous in breaking into Imperial strongholds is _a threat to you!"_

Luke grimaced. "I guess."

"I am glad we are in agreement," Vader drawled, or _snapped_; however he said it, it was sarcastic, angry and biting. "Because tonight, you will be moving into the prince's quarters of the Imperial Palace, and you will be staying there for the foreseeable future."

"What!?" Luke jerked upright. "No!" He supposed, fleetingly, hysterically, that it would make it easier to _rob_ the Palace, if he decided not to rob his father after all, but… _no! He wasn't moving there!_

"It is not safe here," Vader insisted stubbornly, "and I _will not_ lose you."

Those words, the roaring possession in them, almost dried Luke's tongue in his mouth, but he still had the wherewithal to shoot back, "And moving me to a building Angel has already just breached recently is your brilliant plan!?"

Silence, for a moment.

Vader said curiously, "How did you know that Angel breached the Palace last night? I did not specify that the prisoners were kept there."

Luke went pale.

There was a heartbeat of silence, Luke's mind whirring—argue that he had made an educated guess, argue that he'd meant something else—

_I assumed no one could ever breach the _Executor, he could argue, play to his father's pride and joy—

Or:

_"They broke in again!?"_ he stammered. He hoped his reluctance could be put up to surprise. "I— I was talking about the first time."

His father nodded, realisation looming loud in the Force. "I see. That makes sense. But yes," his tone turned grave; Luke hoped the way his eyes widened was believable. "Angel did."

"Perhaps you are right," he conceded. "I… will speak to the Emperor about the most prudent course of action." Luke scowled; Vader definitely saw it, but ignored it. "If nothing else, there will certainly be more guards posted here as soon as we have spoken—by tomorrow night, certainly."

Tomorrow night.

So… for Luke's attempts at breaking out… his attempts at breaking _in_, if he wanted to steal his father's lightsabers…

They would have to happen _tonight_.

Luke said, "Father…"

Vader stopped pacing for a moment, staring at Luke.

Then he lunged forwards and Luke barely had time to squeak before he hugged him.

His face was crushed against his chest plate, his arms coming up to encircle Vader on instinct—and it wasn't really until that moment that he realised how _scared_ his father was.

He was terrified of Angel—_of Luke_.

_For_ Luke.

He closed his eyes tightly and buried his face in his father's cloak, letting the armourweave absorb his tears, and trying not to let his intense _guilt_ cloud their bond.

* * *

Zev had never heard of a planet called Yavin, nor a moon called Yavin IV, which he supposed was the point of the Rebels making a base there.

Solo—a fair pilot, if an abrasive man—led them in calmly, landing with barely a whisper. They'd already dropped Jem, who'd claimed he didn't want to go to the Rebel base, would rather find a way to return to his family, off at Polis Massa along the way, Han even escorting him to the next docking bay so he could get away safe, and this landing was even better than the one Han had pulled off there. Zev could see why Luke liked him. The familiar sight of the _Millennium Falcon_ was apparently welcome on this base; a great gaggle of people came to meet them once they'd set down.

Senator Hyadum—a really nice woman, he'd found along the way—bore nothing more than an expression of relief as she looked out there. Zev's feelings were decidedly more mixed.

He didn't like being stared at, the way the crowd was doing to him now. He… got antsy when he saw the amount of starfighters and bristling blasters and other war machines in this patch of the landing pad alone.

He wanted to fight the Empire, but he was General Veers's son, and he still didn't trust that they'd react any better than Hyadum had when she'd found out.

So he bounced on the balls of his feet as the landing ramp descended, glancing curiously at a symbol spray-painted on the wall of what look like a temple—a four-leafed clover with the bottom leaf larger and heavier than the other—before his gaze fell on a rip in the crowd. It widened further, to reveal a tall Togruta woman with blue and white montrals and two… _lightsabers_ swinging at her hips. She looked severe, but calm, and she strode right up the ramp the moment it touched down, leaving the crowd of curious people behind her.

"They heard that Angel rescued a person, this time, instead of just stealing resources," she explained, walking right past them both and into the cockpit, where Solo and Chewbacca were still lounging in their seats. "They want to ask questions about what it was like, what _Angel_ is like, since Chewbacca isn't so forthcoming and Captain Solo hardly deigns to socialise with the rest of them."

_Luke_, Zev thought. _Luke, do you know the effect you've had here?_

The Togruta took up a stance at the front of the cockpit, hands clasped behind her back; Zev and Hyadum exchanged awkward looks but perched on the two remaining seats.

The Togruta turned around. "My name is Ahsoka Tano," she said. "I knew Luke's mother, a long time ago; I was very close with his father; and even now I teach his sister."

"Luke has a _sister_—?" Zev began.

"But even I did not know Angel's true identity until recently," she continued. "I interacted with Han and Chewie, but they did not tell me Angel's identity, and I did not ask. They do not speak of this to _anyone_. Not Luke's name, not his location, not even what he's going to steal next."

Behind her, Han shifted awkwardly. Zev considered making a sarcastic comment about that moment back on Coruscant that had revealed _Luke's_ identity, but decided against it—he was sure that was an outlier.

Ahsoka surveyed them intently. "Now that you know, I must impress upon you the importance of keeping this knowledge _private_. There may well be spies on this base. _Do not_ risk them finding out, no matter who asks you for details, no matter how pure that person's intentions are. Do not be the reason that Luke is caught and executed."

Silence fell for a moment.

"Of course," Hyadum said. Zev echoed her.

_Luke,_ he thought, _scared_ all of a sudden. _Luke, what have you got yourself into?_

* * *

Sana didn't know, exactly, _how much_ information she had on Angel, but she did know two things:

She had a sizable, valuable amount. She hadn't seen Angel's face, but she knew he was blond, and male; she didn't know his name but she knew roughly his age; and, most importantly, she knew about Han, and she knew what Han had told her.

It was unlikely, esteemed bounty hunter though she was, she would get more.

She'd spooked Han. Pushed too hard. He wouldn't say a word to her on the topic ever again.

So there was only really one way to profit off of this information and gain the gargantuan reward for giving the Imps a few clues, and that was to hand the information over.

Sana had expected that the comm frequency listed as the place to report information about Angel would be manned by some stiff Imperial. One of Vader's quaking aides. She was glad, of course, that it wasn't manned by Vader himself, but—

Why did it have to be manned by _her?_

_"Sana?"_ Aphra's voice was incredulous—both highly amused and utterly unamused at the same time.

"Aphra," she snapped back. She would not acknowledge their previous familiarity by calling her _Chelli_—they hadn't been that close, or close in _that way_, in a _long_ time. "_You're_ the one running this investigation? No wonder it's going to the dogs."

_"Well, I'm helping."_ Aphra smiled. _"Pays well, y'know? Pays extra well when _I_ do well."_ She raised her eyebrows at Sana.

Ugh.

_"C'mon, don't give me that look. What do you have to report?"_

What did she have to report?

She wasn't about to tell them that Han Solo and the _Millennium Falcon_ were Angel's allies. If she played her cards right, she could get the bounty off of Han _and_ the bounty off of Angel, but not if Han was in an Imperial prison—and besides, she knew he was close to paying her back. She'd interrupted him while Chewie was out to have a _conversation_ about that already.

But even the information she knew about Angel alone…

Even if it was good enough to catch him…

Did she want to hand it over?

Did she want to give it to _Aphra_?

She was having second thoughts about _that_.

But… Aphra was working for Vader. Aphra, knowing her, would get spaced or strangled or stabbed soon—probably extremely soon.

"I have a lot of information," she told her, watching her expressions carefully. "Enough for you to catch them."

Aphra rolled her eyes._ "Alright. And what is it?"_

"I want payment in advance, first."

_"No. Obviously not."_ Aphra smirked at her, tapping a little rhythm out, probably on the console of the _Ark Angel_. _"If that's your try, Starros—"_

"I don't trust you to pay me after I tell you."

_"And you think I trust you to give me solid leads? Please."_ She snorted. _"Give me something small, and I'll pay you something small. Give me something big, then I'll check it, and then I _might_ pay you something big."_

"How big do you think Angel's next target is?"

Aphra's expression flickered through so many emotions, then, that it sent blue hologram light leaping across the console of the _Volt Cobra_. Sana pinched her lips and tried not to look amused.

_"That's worth a down payment,"_ Aphra said. Oh, it was _definitely _killing her to say that.

"A few thousand credits down payment?"

Her face was thunder. _"You could say that. But you're not getting the full reward."_

"Of course not. I'll give you this, you give it to your _boss_… and when it's proven correct, and you're inclined to _trust my information_, I'll give you the rest, and you give me the rest."

_"That seems like a way to operate."_

"Good."

_"Now. Where are they gonna hit?"_

Sana smiled. "Angel is after lightsabers for the Rebellion." She'd cornered Han on Polis Massa, when they'd stopped there briefly; he hadn't said anything specific about Angel, just that Han would be smuggling valuable artefacts soon and that it could make them both rich if she gave him time… but it didn't take a genius to figure it out. And it didn't take a genius to figure out— "And I think we both know what the next target will be, then."

_"Yeah,"_ Aphra agreed, lighting up in a grin. _"Third time's the charm."_

* * *

"And this informant is," Vader paused, allowing himself to loom, before finishing, "_reliable?_"

Aphra shrugged. _"Absolutely not,"_ she said. _"We have a history."_

"I have no interest in your sordid love affairs."

Aphra made a sound like she was choking on her own tongue. _"No, boss, didn't think you would. But she's a good bounty hunter. Like, she scares me, good. I think she… probably knows what she's talking about? And if this information is wrong, I don't pay her for whatever else she wants to offer me."_

"I see." He paused, mulling it over for a moment. "And she claims that Angel wants to steal… lightsabers."

_"From the Imperial Palace, yeah."_

"Where _else_ would they be stealing them from?" he shot back, irritated. "No matter. They have proven themselves _cocky _in regard to their misadventures in there. This ends now."

_"You'll set a trap for them?"_

"You are the archaeologist," he reminded her. "We will enter the Emperor's trophy room, and there we will lay the trap. Angel is arrogant. This will be their downfall."

Aphra looked excited. If he were a happier, or better, man, Vader might have called _himself_ excited as well, but no—he was apprehensive, anticipatory, and full of _bloodlust_.

_"Looking forward to it, boss,"_ she said, then had the audacity to wink before the connection cut off.

Vader strode out of his communications' room in a world of his own. It was that, he was sure, which made him miss Luke's presence in the living room at first. He was perusing a datapad; when he heard him coming, he raised his eyes and his eyebrows in question.

"You are at home for once," Vader observed; he'd thought that Luke had gone to that mechanics' shop after their conversation, but if he was back— "Good. Going or staying out late under the circumstances is ill-advised."

Luke didn't respond; just looked vaguely gueasy. Perhaps that conversation that morning had frightened him more than he'd realised; Vader felt bad, but couldn't bring himself to regret it.

So long as Luke was _safe_…

"Yeah," Luke said. "I think I'll just end up going to bed early tonight."

Good. "Good. Sleep well."

"You too." And _there_ was Luke's chiding look, the one that made Vader feel more child than parent. "How much have you slept in the last week?"

Very little, but the night of Coruscant was just as busy as the day. Vader needed to be awake, he needed too catch Angel. He needed to protect Luke.

"Enough," was all he said. He ignored Luke's scoff as he made for the door, and the speeder. He was already mulling over all the preparations he'd need to make for tonight.


	19. The Betrayal

"Wow," Aphra said, staring around the Emperor's vaults. "The more I look, the more stuff there is in here."

"That is how vaults work."

"It's _so cool_. Does he use any of this?" She leaned in to inspect an embellished golden bowl, which the Force informed Vader was an object of note to the dark side, but that Aphra probably thought was merely a valuable old trinket. She reached out to it—only to yelp when he seized her wrist with the Force and shoved her back.

"Cease your poking. It is your honour to be in here; do not give me undue reason to believe you will abuse it."

She raised an eyebrow. "You think I'm stupid enough to steal from him? With _you_ hanging over my shoulder?"

"You have been useful to me on multiple occasions; your intelligence is not in doubt. Your _wisdom_, however, is."

Aphra huffed, but clearly couldn't deny _that_.

"Has the trap been laid?"

"I rearranged the vault so that the lightsabers are nearer the centre, with the wide-open space," Aphra recited. "There's a few goodies for Angel if they go poking around in the other rooms. A pipe by the holocrons which will release a gas to knock out a human—your mask should filter it out—when it detects someone nearby; there's all sorts of cameras and sensors in all the rooms, so you'll know they're here the _moment_ they arrive; I installed some ray shields near the gallery store and also on either side of the entrance, which we'll both need to walk around to avoid getting stuck in them ourselves; and a bunch of other little things inspired by a _particularly_ well-defended tomb I excavated on Vanqor—"

"Write up a report and stop babbling." But he would admit to a small sliver of satisfaction as he hooked his thumbs into his belt and glanced around the many levels of the vault, peering at each item on its shelf. Looking at it, it was evident it had been rearranged since Angel had last breached it, with the guard and cameras and general security increased… but even with an intent, wary look, unless you knew exactly what you were looking for, it was impossible to tell that that security was _trap_ worthy.

"I expect they will attack tonight," he stated. "They have been arrogant lately, and will want to capitulate on their success as quickly as possible before security escalates yet again. We will leave for now; I will stay in the Palace watching all night, but you are dismissed."

Aphra scowled. "C'mon, I wanted to see you catch this sucker."

"Leave."

"Yes, boss."

Vader turned and strode towards the exit, the red guards outside watching him closely. Aphra yelped behind him, "Wait, one last thing—"

He walked into a walk of blue.

His suit _crackled_, his prosthetics seizing up temporarily and tingling; he staggered back, but forced himself to stop. Turned on the spot, wary.

Aphra said awkwardly, "I never showed you where the ray shields were."

* * *

Luke took a moment to centre himself before he deactivated the shields on his window, just enough and just for long enough that it looked like he wanted a breath of fresh air. He _had_ gone to bed early that night, he hadn't lied to his father about that; he'd managed to have a good few hours of sleep before the alarm he'd set had awoken him again, and he felt far more refreshed than he usually did. Convenient, then, that home was so… well, close to home.

He slid out the window, and grasped the windowsill. He climbed up to perch on there for a moment, before clambering back in and deactivating the shields again, though he kept the window open. The troopers his father always had on duty were at the front door to the apartment, he could sense, and also on the roof—perhaps, he thought with a quirk of the lips, his father had learnt from the break in at Senator Falynn's—but none on the main floor. His father's respect for their privacy as a family at work, just the way he'd described to Leia.

If this went off well enough, Luke thought grimly, creeping out of his own bedroom, that would not change.

But if it didn't…

Well. If Vader _realised_ that Angel had breached his own home and stolen his trophies, whether they left Luke untouched or not, Luke would be forced to move into the Imperial Palace faster than he could say _panicking parent_.

But there were no guards hanging around for now, no stormtroopers to witness what was happening and no one to get caught in the crossfire, so he just continued on. With any luck, with the way he'd done the window it would mislead later investigators into thinking he'd entered that way, rather than already being inside the building; it would also make a point, given that Angel had climbed in right past a supposedly-sleeping Luke and not so much as touched him, or tried to cut his throat in his sleep, that Angel technically had no interest in the Imperial Prince…

The corridor beyond Luke's bedroom was dark, of course, as was the living room just after. He didn't bother turning on the lights; that might clock any random passers-by into the fact that someone was awake inside, and neither he nor the hypothetical Angel wanted that. No: he knew this apartment well enough to navigate it himself.

The entrance way—the landing pad and the turbolift down to some of the lower levels, with the hangar and the garage and the kitchen. He didn't flinch away from them and kept walking.

His father's rooms were ahead.

He had been nervous this whole time, even if in a familiar, understandable way—after all, he had pulled off heists before, even though they never became any less nerve-wracking. He found himself exponentially nervous, here, though, because…

His father liked his privacy.

Luke was aware of some of his… ailments… and had a vague idea of what had caused them—Vader's raging over the Jedi Kenobi's kidnapping of Luke, and over other things Kenobi had done that he'd never gone into the specifics of, had always been fierce—but he didn't know of anything in particular. He had seen his father's face before, obviously, he'd seen it several times, he knew the colour of his father's eyes so much like his own… but he was still very out of place in his father's quarters.

And now he strode in, bold as brass, only to hesitate.

He did turn the lights on in here—or rather, they turned themselves on automatically. Thankfully there were no windows, and the only door was closed behind Luke.

Luke didn't look at the hyperbaric chamber. Didn't think about the fact he'd seen his father without the mask on in there only a few weeks ago, staring at him with undisguised adoration and _trust_, as Luke gently teased him into getting some sleep.

He forged on through, to the training room. Perhaps, now that Palpatine was training Luke in the Force, his father would spar with him? Perhaps… perhaps that would be allowed… He didn't know.

He just knew that there was the rack, and there were the lightsabers. How many lightsabers did they need? Three? He could fit… ten in his bag, he thought. Just in case.

He felt around each of them in the Force—nothing. No danger, as far as he could sense. Good. There was nothing…

He still had a bad feeling about this. That was what that nervousness was, he realised: foreboding. A bad feeling. A warning from the Force? He didn't know.

Could he back away? Should he back away. Or just keep going…

No.

Keep going.

He had to.

He reached for the rack of lightsabers and pulled them away, one by one, dropping them into the bag he'd slung over his shoulder when he'd dressed himself all in black. They clinked together; he amused himself by the idea of Leia chiding him for it—_a lightsaber is your life_, she'd quoted to him once, even thought he had never touched one himself—but there wasn't exactly anything he could do with it.

This was going well. Things were going well. He moved back out—out of his father's quarters, back toward his bedroom. Things were going _well_—

And of course, it was at that moment that his father called out—

_Luke_.

* * *

Vader had been waiting in the control room nearest to the vaults and staring at the monitor for hours. There had been no change.

Nothing.

No bandit was crawling through the vents. No burglar was sidestepping the guards to get through. How were they coming? How did they intend to arrive?

What was Angel planning?

Had Vader misjudged them after all? It was… possible. Pulling off two heists in two nights must be draining; perhaps they had resolved to give it a rest this evening, despite that there was no way they were not aware that time was everything, that the more they waited the more security measures would be implemented. What did they hope to achieve by putting off this inevitable repeat attack on the Emperor's vaults? There was nowhere else on the planet where they could find lightsabers; no one except Vader and the Emperor kept Jedi weapons as trophies—

Unless they went for Vader's collection, of course.

It was, technically, not as ruthlessly guarded as Palpatine's. And while it wasn't like it was common knowledge that Vader kept such a collection, it wasn't exactly common knowledge that Palpatine did either, and it wasn't an impossible leap of logic, or faith…

Which meant…

Was Angel there now?

Was _that_ why they had not shown up where Vader's trap was set? Were they targeting Vader's home?

His durasteel heart, usually thumping its lacklustre performance from day to monotonous day, quickened and thudded and stuttered.

Were they targeting Vader's home on the _one night that his son was actually there?_

_Luke_, he cast out desperately, all of a sudden, striding violently away from the monitor to the baffled stares of the officers manning it.

He sensed nothing, then—

A flicker of hesitant acknowledgement, of _shock_, of horror—

_Horror._

What was happening!?

What was happening to his son!?

_Luke,_ he demanded, _Luke, my son, answer me. Are you there? Are you alright?_

A spike of terror, and then that terror _skyrocketed_ when he asked:

_Is Angel there?_

No response.

None, except mounting terror—the sort of terror that left you panicking, gasping for breath, unable to think or talk or logic. It cut right through to Vader's soul, and he knew.

Angel was there.

And Luke wasn't just in the line of fire.

He was the one with the biggest target on his back.

* * *

_Luke. Luke._

_Is Angel there?_

He knew.

Luke sucked in a deep breath, shaking—he should reassure him, he should say _no, they're not_, he should send his father back to his work in the Palace and operate under the façade of innocence he'd been keeping up so well for so long—

But he'd _hesitated_.

And there was no way he could explain away the horror he'd felt—not without clueing in his father to what he was actually doing, actually thinking. The spike of fear, the panic, had to be put up to _something_, something terrible, something brutal, and now—

_Be strong, Luke,_ his father said. Luke was ready to kriffing hyperventilate. _Help is on the way._

No. No, no, no—

The alarm started blaring throughout the apartment.

Luke closed his eyes in horror for one horrible moment. His father had contacted the stormtroopers. The stormtroopers had set off the alarms.

They were coming.

_They were coming_.

Quick. There was no time to panic, no time to _think_—all the doors in the apartment were heavy, reinforced durasteel, for security reasons; he immediately skirted around the place and _locked them_, drawing out one of the lightsabers to even disable the turbolift, shoving it into the controls and welding the doors together. Every single door control panel was locked and disabled, slashed and sparking, and he stood in the centre of the living room and yanked on the Force to pile the furniture in front of the windows, closing the curtains, as a barricade. The stormtroopers pounded on the doors, he heard them open fire, but they were locked out.

There were no security cameras here, in the heart of Luke's home, he knew that well.

Troopers were barking orders, panicked explanations, nerves fraying—

_LUKE!? ARE YOU THERE!? ARE YOU ALRIGHT!?_

Luke didn't answer. So—

His comlink began to buzz.

And buzz, and buzz, and buzz. He could hear it from here; he strode out of the living room, from one room of the little prison he'd made for himself to another, and saw it vibrating madly on his bedside table.

Luke picked it up, and the chaotic swirl of his thoughts yielded three things.

One thing was: he was trapped.

Another thing: he was dressed from head to toe in black; he was carrying stolen lightsabers.

And finally: even if he changed now, aborted the mission, and tossed the evidence out the _window_… it would be impossible to totally dismiss the suspicion levelled at him, for surviving an attack like this unscathed.

Which meant…

Which meant…

Which meant that the only plan he had, a _thoroughly insane one_, was the best chance he was gonna get.

He accepted the call—set the comlink to voice only, no visual. His father's voice thundered.

_"LUKE—!"_

And Luke drew upon all those games he'd played to freak out his friends at the academy, changed his voice to the most generic lower-levels-of-Coruscant accent he could, and drawled, "This is an honour, Lord Vader."

* * *

The guards in the control room watched Vader freeze utterly, utterly still. They could not hear the voice coming out of the comlink, not from here, but they did here Vader hiss:

"_Angel_."

* * *

_Oh my stars_. Luke was ready to jump out the window and let the levels swallow him. _Oh my stars, oh stars, oh stars—_

What was he doing?

_What was he doing!?_

His father's voice was loaded with fury. This was more fury than all the other denizens of this system—no; this _galaxy_—would experience all together in a hundred years.

_What was Luke doing?_

Whatever it was, he kept doing it.

"Indeed," he said, trying to keep a lid on his fear in the Force. He failed. To a powerful wielder like his father, it probably stank. "I _had_ hoped this heist would go off without a hitch, but I suppose we must all be prepared for certain… eventualities." Inwardly, Luke cringed. _Stars._

His father was not impressed. _"You are surrounded, whether my men can get in immediately or not. They will make it through eventually, _I_ am on my way, and then your days defying the Empire will be _over_."_

"It sounds like you've thought this all through," Luke continued monotonously, his own fear glassing his voice into calm. "But need I remind you, Vader, whose comlink this is?"

There was no response to that: just the constant, consistent sound of Vader's belaboured breathing.

Luke smirked, to get into character. "Your son is trapped in here," he said smoothly. Technically, it wasn't a lie. "You can find me… but—"

_"If you _touch _him," _Vader growled—Vader _vowed_—_"You will know the meaning of true suffering—"_

"And that will not bring him back from the dead, will it? So I suggest, Vader, that you start to bargain."

Another brush against his mind—this time Luke let himself latch onto it, like his chubby hand had latched onto his father's finger when he was but a baby, and let his fear screech out. _Father, Father, I'm scared, this is it, this is the end, I'm going to die here, I'm going to be tortured—_

_It will be _fine_, Luke. I swear to you this. _

_FATHER!_

His heart was racing. Luke couldn't _breathe_. But still he continued in that horrid voice, that horrid monotone: "You will call off your troops, or he will lose a hand. Then we can go from there—but the hand is a good place to start, isn't it?"

_"You _dare_—"_

"I dare." Luke reached for one of the lightsabers and lit it, letting the fierce hum reverberate down the line, out of the comlink, right into Vader's eardrums. "Call them off. Now."

Still, Vader hedged—_"I will _not_—"_

"Father," he said, in his ordinary voice, and let it tremble.

Stars. Force and all the stars above. He felt _terrible_, he— he was manipulating his father, tormenting him _intentionally_, but—

_I want to live._

_I don't want to be caught and tortured and executed._

_I don't want him to know the truth._

He'd come that far as Angel—too late to back out now.

He— he didn't know if his father loved him more than the Empire, but he _did_ know that he loved him more than he hated Angel…

…for _now_…

…so he let himself gasp for air, tears leaking down his face as he blatantly betrayed his father's love and trust and devotion, manipulated it to his own gain, to his face, as he said, "Father… _please_…"

_I'm scared_.

_I know, little one. I know_. He could hear the pain that came with that admission.

Luke, in the role of Angel, sighed. "Well, I understand your decision." And then he moved the lightsaber—

_"Wait!"_

There was a moment of silence. Luke waited, breath bated. When his father spoke, his voice trembling with so much pain it cut Luke right to the core.

_"I will order my men to stand down."_

Good, Luke tried to think through his own hysteria—good, while they were retreating he could escape, he could climb out the window, steal a speeder and _fly_, he could skedaddle—

"Call them out of the building altogether," he ordered. He couldn't have them _seeing_ Angel get past the broken turbolift, to the landing pad, and flying away, sans Luke.

_"I—"_

"I won't bother to repeat my threat, Lord Vader, you know it already."

Vader's rage was a live wire. _"I do. If you let my son go, I will oblige you."_

"Let him go? Here?" Luke scoffed—even taking care to make sure _that_ was utterly unrecognisable from his useful scoff. "What guarantee is that? You'll only pursue me, won't you?" He didn't wait for Vader to reply. "No. I will take him. I will go to my rendezvous point and dump your precious prince there, so long as you behave, and so long as _I am not followed_. You can retrieve him from there—I'm sure whatever _connection_ you undoubtedly have in the Force will be enough to find him." That, inevitably, was not a plan that would work—Luke would not be able to hang around all in black, rather than the pyjamas he'd been wearing in bed, along with a stolen speeder, and _not_ incur suspicion from the stormtroopers. But he was sure he could improvise from there.

_"So it is confirmed, _Angel_. You do have knowledge of the Force."_

Luke didn't deign to respond to that.

"I can still sense your men in the building," he warned. Gritting his teeth, he tilted the lit lightsaber in his hand and held it uncomfortably close to his skin—letting out a _hiss_ between his teeth and a sharp pulse of pain into the Force when it scalded him slightly.

Vader said, _"I have called them off."_

And he had: he could sense them going, like ships retreating from orbit.

_"Now _let my son go_."_

"Were you not listening?" Luke—Angel—shot back. "_No_. You will get him so long as I get off this planet alive, _unfollowed_."

_"And tell me why I should trust your word on this."_

"Because you don't have a choice?" Luke sniped. His father's anger was still _terrifying_, so he tried to cushion that—and the guilt still lurking in his chest—by adding, "I am a _thief_. Not a killer. And while I would _not_ regret ridding the galaxy of another budding Sith Lord before he can join you in wallowing in pain and destruction," he spat the words, getting into character, "I would prefer to avoid _killing_. For now.

"But _do not push me_, if you want to see him whole—that mandate does not extend to cutting off his _limbs_."

Vader was silent for several frozen seconds. Luke realised his brow was drenched in cold sweat.

_"You will not be pursued,"_ Vader got out, stilted. _"You will not be attacked. But if you do not return my son, Angel, _he_ will not be the Sith Lord you have to worry about."_

"I'm aware of that, Lord Vader. If I don't return him, he won't have the chance to become a Sith Lord at all, will he?"

He cut the connection before he could hear his father's barbed reply.

* * *

He got out onto the landing pad, climbed over the edge and reached the hangar from there. Sure enough, it was barren of troopers, but he could sense them just beyond his reach—waiting in speeders outside the building, for Angel to come out. He could sense his father's black mood like a thunder cloud. He could sense danger at every turn.

He chose a speeder he'd never used before, though he'd helped his father work on it: it had a closed cockpit, it was fast, and it had tinted windows. He threw the lightsabers in the back seat—so much _hassle_ for ten laserswords? Why couldn't Leia have told the Jedi to go find a temple like the one on Lothal and go make their own?—and seized the controls, shooting out of the hangar, onto the landing pad.

Into the night beyond.

* * *

_"Lord Vader, Angel has left the building."_

"Keep them in your sights. If they get away, your life is forfeit, Commander."

_"Yes, my lord."_

"What do you see of my son?"

_"The speeder he stole has tinted windows and we cannot see inside; no visuals on Luke Skywalker."_

"But he is in there." Vader took a deep breath and reached out: Luke was shielding now—Vader theorised that Angel, as a thrice-damned Force-sensitive, had said something to him and unnerved him, and that made him want to kill them even more—but he could distantly sense Luke's determination despite his fear. His son was so brave…

And his son was moving farther and farther away from him.

He could not trust Angel to keep their word. He would sooner lose all his limbs and burn in the fires of Mustafar again than lose Luke because he _trusted_ a kidnapper.

"Do not let them out of your sight," he reiterated darkly. "Follow them, but do not let them see you." If Angel decided Luke was too dangerous a hostage to keep after all…

For a moment, Vader acknowledged the possibility that had been slowly but surely murdering him from the moment he'd reached out to Luke:

He might never see his son again.

He should've moved them to the Imperial Palace. He should never have moved them _out_. He should have installed security cameras, should have valued security over privacy, should have blasted Palpatine's orders to hell and taught Luke to defend himself with the Force, training or no training, he should—

He should never have made him Imperial Prince, and put a target on his back like this.

Except… that wasn't why he was being targeted, was it?

He was being targeted because of _Vader_.

Because he was his son.

And if Vader made the _slightest _misstep… he might never see him again.

Vader clenched his fists, and his fear fed his rage which fed his power into a heady mixture that spun the galaxy on a disc around him, Luke its centre and axis. He reached for him, trying to transmit calming waves—_you will be alright, you will be alright, you will be alright_—but he… didn't know how much effect they had.

His son could die, at the ruthless hands of a Rebel. And there was no way Vader could stop it.

_"My lord, Angel is proving a difficult pilot to catch; they are diving between buildings and seem to be very good at slipping away—"_

_"Do not _let them out of your sight, Commander," Vader growled. "_Do not_ fail me."

But they kept up the chase, and Angel flew like a person possessed—better, almost, than Luke himself.

They lost them in the maze.

* * *

The Force flashed—stormtrooper carrier on the left, ambling by, trying to keep an eye on him; Luke dove straight down, gunning for the tiniest slot in the buildings.

He squeezed through. Barely.

He could still sense them following, behind him, closing in; they knew what this speeder looked like and they wouldn't give up, not so long as the Imperial Prince was supposedly on board, and Luke _could not stop running_. He— he had to—

_"Kid!"_ Han shouted when he finally skidded to a halt at the rendezvous. He just blew their cover there, if this continued he would lead the troopers right here, but he had a _precious_ five minutes, at most, before they caught up, and— "What the hell is going on?"

"No time to explain, we need to go!"

Han stood there stunned for a moment. Luke leapt out of the speeder, switched off the engine and shoved it over the edge of the concrete pathway. It dropped like a stone and smashed against some metal struts below.

"You—" Han blinked. "Are you finally coming with us? You— I know you said you couldn't leave your dad or the Rebellion, but—"

Oh.

"No, Han," Luke said. "I— I can't come with you, not permanently, but—"

Han grimaced. "Let me guess. You're in trouble."

"Yes." Luke hissed out a breath, bouncing on the balls of his feet, his lightsabers clinking together in his bag. "I— I—"

"You got caught?"

"Almost." His gaze bored into Han. "I will be, if I linger."

Han shrugged. "Then get inside, junior, and we'll get the hell off this planet."

* * *

He should not have sent out those men to follow Angel.

Vader knew that—he realised that, the moment he sensed Luke's presence _lift off_, into orbit. He'd hastily ordered a blockade, _demanded_ that the traffic on the planet be halted and stopped, at that early hour of the night, but they were too slow.

_They were too slow_.

_Luke_, he called out, searching, searching…

Luke reached back. _Father_.

He was afraid. He was full of shame—that sent a twist in Vader's chest, and he hastened to assure him: _This was not your fault, I should have protected you, I _will_ find you, I_—

Angel was going to let him go.

But Vader had miscalculated—underestimated the thief. He had not been willing to take the risk, and in doing that he had risked _everything_.

He had risked _Luke_.

_I will find you,_ he swore. _I will raze the galaxy until every Rebel base, every hidey hole they could have stowed you in, is laid bare to the scourge of the light. I will rip this burglar open from the inside out for their nerve, for threatening you; _I will find you_, son, do not fear, I…_

_I will pursue you until you are safe. I will bring hell upon any Rebel sympathisers and destroy worlds and I—_

Whatever he'd been about to say next, he did not say it.

The bond in his chest snapped as the ship—a dilapidated smugglers' freighter, YT-1300 Corellian in make, his men would later inform him—leapt to lightspeed and his son was suddenly parsecs away.

* * *

His son was parsecs away, and making a _very_ awkward comm call.

"Leia," Luke said, the moment she answered—it was the middle of the night in Imperial City, yes, but this was _important_. She was probably already awake—"Something has happened."

Her hair was in a single plait down her back, flyaway from sleep, but it was clear she'd already been awake when he'd commed her: she planted her hands on her hips and gave him a look. _"Care to explain to me why the planet's on lockdown and there are rumours that the Imperial Prince has been _kidnapped_, Luke?"_

Luke gritted his teeth.

"Well," he tried to begin, "at least I got the lightsabers…?"


End file.
